The New Age
by radredknuxfan
Summary: Bellwether's plan goes off without a hitch, and in an effort to assert her power, she brings back the tame collars in an attempt to control the predator population. As for Nick and Judy, they're trying their best to live their lives, but when things get worse, they know that they have to stop her. AU based off of Zistopia draft. Cover by TurningTides from DeviantArt. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

Quick note before we get started. I apologize in advance if anything seems to be a little too like any of the other stories done with the original shock collar storyline. After reading through what's been done so far of Zistopia, I really wanted to do my own version of this alternate take on Zootopia's story. I'll try my best to make it as original as possible, but there are no guarantees.

* * *

It was a beautiful day inside the city of Zootopia. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and everyone was on their way to spend another day doing whatever they normally do.

However, things aren't exactly as perfect as you would think.

The only people inside of the city who were actually out on the streets were prey animals. The predators were nowhere to be seen, outside of a few scattered throughout the city limits, and even then they were all doing their best not to stand out.

All of the other predators that made up the minority of Zootopia's population were shunted off into an area of the city referred to as Happytown, but most of the predators that one spoke to would refer to it as the exact opposite.

"Happytown" was formerly the lower class part of the city, where crime ran rampant and amenities were barely serviceable to the animals that lived there. Ever since Mayor Bellwether asserted her power over the city, the prey occupants were allowed to move into the better looking parts of the city, while the predators were forced to move back to where they originally were.

Now, inside the boundaries of the least happiest place on Earth stood a fox, absentmindedly scratching at his neck every so often, where a collar sat.

"God, these things are really starting to bother me," he said to himself as he tried his best to reach his clawed finger under the strap.

The fox, whose name was Nicholas Piberius Wilde, could have easily just pulled the strap out a bit so he could easily reach under and get at that itch, but with how touchy things have been lately with it, he didn't want to risk it.

You see, the collar he had on was actually what was referred to as a tame collar, designed to give an electric shock proportional to the intensity of the wearer's emotions. According to Bellwether, it was intended to prevent predators from being able to bring out their primal instincts, but Nick knew that it was a bunch of bull.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much he could do, especially after they came so close to bringing her down. If it wasn't for his friend, a rabbit named Judy Hopps, getting knocked out and accidentally breaking her recording carrot pen, things would have been a lot better than they were now. Heck, they were both lucky to still be alive.

Sighing, Nick began walking, his paws in his pants pockets as he tried his best to keep his emotions in check. Being a confox for as long as he had been helped him really control his emotions (you need to if you want to be successful), but he'd seen way too many of his fellow preds get shocked to want to experience it himself.

"Where is he?" said Nick to himself, checking off into the street every so often as he walked.

He didn't have to wait too long, though, as a large van pulled up, coming to a stop as Nick clearly recognized the garish looking design on the side.

"Fin, where've you been? I've been waiting here for the past fifteen minutes!" said Nick as the window rolled down to reveal a fennec fox in the driver's seat, sunglasses covering his eyes as he regarded Nick with an air of disdain. The fox, named Finnick, also had a collar around his neck.

"I got stuck in traffic, alright? Just get in; we've got work to do."

Nick was more than happy to get off of the street, as he was beginning to get some strange looks from other predators due to all of the loitering he was doing.

After closing the door behind him, Finnick pulled the van out of its parking spot, heading down the road towards one of the boundaries between Happytown and the rest of Savannah Central.

"So…I'm guessing from the way you were talking just now means that you've got an idea for another con?" asked Nick, attempting to strike up a conversation.

This only earned the fox a slow eye roll from his partner, as the fennec sighed heavily.

"Christ, Nick, it's only been…what…two months? Have you forgotten how we do things already after working with that bunny cop?" he said, a smile tugging at his lips.

"Well, can you blame me? Carrots finally managed to convince me to do something with my life and join the force. If predators weren't banned from getting jobs with the police, I probably wouldn't even have been here," he said, slightly annoyed.

"Too bad that it did end up happening, though. Hey, at least we're back together."

"Oh sure, and you seem so happy to see me again," said Nick sarcastically, earning himself a glare from the fennec.

Thankfully, before Finnick could get himself riled up, Nick suddenly realized that they reached their destination, and he quickly signaled for this partner to stop the car.

"Seriously? Here?" asked Finnick, staring at Nick like he was crazy. "We're barely over the border!"

"Exactly. If we need to make a hasty escape, we won't have far to go before we get back to our side of town and get some backup from some of our friends."

"Who? Honey?" asked Finnick, sighing heavily once the shock wore off. "You do realize that ever since she got fired from her job at the Cliffside Asylum, she's been nuttier than a squirrel in a pile of acorns?"

Nick paused for a second, a little confused with Finnick's strange analogy, but he decided to move on before his head started to hurt.

"Hey, even if we do manage to get arrested, I'm sure we'll have our good friend Fluff to help us get out."

Finnick made a dismissive noise, knowing just how unlikely that was to be the case, but he couldn't help but wonder something now that the subject's been broached.

"Say, where is that rabbit anyway? You'd think that she would've come to visit every once in a while."

Nick paused, admittedly a little curious himself.

"You know, I really do not know. We never really traded phone numbers, so I guess things just kind of…fell apart?" he said, shrugging.

Nick honestly really didn't want it to be that way, but with the way things were going since they were thrown into this predicament, he at least had some reason to think so.

Sighing, Nick decided it was best not to think about it, so after readjusting his collar a bit (being careful not to trigger it accidentally), he threw himself into preparing for his new hustle.

* * *

Back in the main area of the city across from City Hall stood Precinct One, the main branch of the Zootopia Police Department that covers almost the entirety of Savannah Central.

Inside said building sat Judy Hopps, although she wasn't her usual overly enthusiastic self.

Ever since all of the predator officers were removed from their jobs and replaced with prey, she couldn't help but feel that things were way more oppressive than they used to be.

I mean, sure, the new officers were definitely nice enough, and Judy managed to get along with a fair share of them, but it just wasn't the same, and it was also a constant reminder of what could have been if one of Bellwether's rams hadn't knocked her out and destroyed the only object she had that could have brought the mad sheep down.

The only remaining cop besides her from the previous incarnation of Precinct One just happened to be Chief Bogo (as well as McHorn and Higgins), and while the cape buffalo was an intimidating specimen in his own right, he was also technically considered as prey, which saved his job. Still, with how surly the chief has been lately, he might as well have not been there for all it did for Judy's optimism.

Sighing, the rabbit hopped off of the chair she was standing on, having just finished lunch, and went back outside the precinct as she prepared for another round of patrolling the streets.

Unfortunately, patrolling the streets also gave Judy quite an eye full of the state that Zootopia was in now that Bellwether was here to stay.

As she drove her cruiser along the streets, looking for any suspicious activity, she couldn't help but notice the prey animals freely asserting their superiority over the predators now that they were for all intents and purposes safe from being eaten thanks to the collars.

The actions got progressively worse and worse as she moved on, before she nearly drove past a couple of prey children trying their best to rile up a predator kid so that his collar would go off.

Bringing the car to a stop, she could clearly hear all of the taunting that was going on, and she knew that she needed to put a stop to this.

"Hey! Break it up!" she yelled once she hopped out of the cruiser and began making her way over to the group.

The prey animals were immediately sent running, although her ears managed to catch them saying stuff that she knew would get them in trouble with their parents if they heard them saying it.

Putting that thought into the back of her mind, she quickly turned towards the pred child who was being taunted, only to be surprised when she noticed the look of terror on the little kid's face.

Quickly thinking of a plan to ease the young bear's concerns, Judy kneeled down so that the two of them were both eye-to –eye (which was admittedly not too far considering Judy was only about a foot taller than him), and she smiled.

"Hey, it's okay, little guy. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm an officer. My job is to help guys like you," she said, adopting a calm demeanor in the hope of making him feel better.

The kid still didn't say anything, but what got Judy a little worried was that his expression didn't change despite Judy's assurances of his safety.

"So, where are you parents? Did you lose track of them?"

The bear slowly nodded and Judy, smiling now that she got something out of the kid, stood up and held out a paw.

"Here, I'll help you find them."

The kid looked incredibly reluctant, no doubt remembering what his parents taught about not going along with strangers (which was even worse if they were prey), but the earnest look that Judy on her face combined with the cruiser that he could see across the street made him believe her, and he grabbed her hand with a surprisingly strong grip for someone of his age.

Judy was a little caught off guard by the hard grip on her paw, but she really didn't want to do anything to frighten the kid any further, so she led him back towards the cruiser and helped him into the passenger seat.

Once Judy had returned to her own seat and buckled in, she glanced over and felt her heart break as she saw the kid picking at his tame collar with one of his clawed fingers, a frown on his face.

As much as she wanted to say something to help alleviate what he was going through, she unfortunately couldn't think of anything to say, so she simply gave the kid's shoulder a light squeeze.

Thankfully, this seemed to do the trick, as the action managed to distract the kid from his collar as he looked up at Judy and smiled. It wasn't a full on smile, though, but Judy decided that it was probably best to take it as it was.

"So…what's your name?"

The kid looked noticeably surprised to hear the question, as he stared at Judy with confusion on his face.

"I need to know what your name is so I can find your parents."

The kid still looked a little reluctant, but after some silent prodding from Judy, he finally spoke some of the first words that she's heard from him.

"Jackson Grylls." he said, his voice almost coming out in a whisper.

Judy's eyebrows shot up a few inches as she heard the name come out.

"Wow, that's a pretty cool name," she said, her motherly voice still in full effect.

"Thanks," said the kid, his voice even quieter as he appeared to be a little embarrassed.

Judy gave the kid another smile before holding up a finger in the universal sign to give her a minute. Thankfully, the kid understood, and he remained silent as she reached over and pulled the speaker off of her radio, untangling the cord a bit before hitting the button.

"Dispatch, this is Officer Hopps requesting assistance."

"This is dispatch, Officer Hopps, what do you need?" said a male voice from the other end of the line.

Judy clearly recognized the voice coming from the other end, but she paused as she realized that she didn't remember the guy's name, only that he happened to be a gemsbok (not in any way related to one of her neighbors). She had only heard it in passing once, and she didn't really speak to him all that often considering he was the complete opposite end of the spectrum compared to Clawhauser, at least in terms of personality.

Releasing the button, she sighed heavily before deciding just to wing it and not refer to him by name.

"Dispatch, can you pull up contact information on a Mr. or Mrs. Grylls? I've got their son Jackson with me, and I'd like to get into contact with them so that I can reunite them."

"One moment, officer." said the gemsbok.

As Judy waited for a reply, she nearly swore when his name suddenly hit her. Thankfully, she managed to hold herself back from doing so considering she was in the presence of a child.

"Of course! It was Johnathan! God, I am such an idiot," she said quietly.

Unfortunately, the kid heard, but he was old enough to get the idea of what she was going for, so decided not to question it.

Before things could get any more awkward between the two of them, the radio crackled to life, and Johnathan's voice once again came through.

"Officer Hopps, is the child still with you?"

"Yes, he is." said Judy, a little confused as she wondered what he was going on about.

"I've received multiple hits from that last name. Can you tell me what their first names are supposed to be?"

"One moment."

Judy looked over at Jackson, but before she could even ask, the kid had already begun answering.

"My dad's name is Gerald and my mom's name is Cynthia." he said, his voice coming out stronger now that he's getting more comfortable.

Luckily, Judy still had her finger on the button, so Johnathan had heard the entire thing. After a few seconds pause, he spoke up once more.

"Gerald and Cynthia Grylls. 1500 West Third Street, Happytown. Do you need the phone number?"

Judy briefly considered saying yes, but she soon realized that there was a good chance that the parents were probably still home if they weren't aware of what had happened to their son as of yet.

"No thanks. The address is good enough. Thanks for the help."

"10-4."

Judy quickly returned the speaker to the clip on the radio, putting her cruiser into drive as she pulled out of her parking spot.

"Come on. Let's go see your parents."


	2. Chapter 2

Thankfully, the ride over to Jackson's parents' house went pretty smoothly, although she was getting some weird looks from others considering the fact that they could easily see the predator child in the passenger seat.

Judy, luckily, managed to take some of the stuff that she'd learned from Nick during their time spent together (most of all including his mantra of never letting anything get to you), and ignored the looks as she continued on her way.

Eventually, she pulled on to the street in question, and after spending a few seconds trying to discern the right number from the dilapidated house numbers, she finally managed to find the house she was looking for and came to a stop.

"Come on, Jackson. Let's get you back with your parents," said Judy, pulling herself out of her seat and hopping down on to the pavement as she went over to help the bear out of his seat.

However, before they began to make their way to the house, Judy kneeled down and placed her paws on Jackson's shoulders.

"Now, I want you to stay close to me, alright? I know most predators aren't like this, but I don't want you to get yourself hurt." she said, giving the young bear a warm smile.

Jackson nodded, showing that he understood, and the two of them began making their way across the street.

Things ended up becoming a little strained, though, as Judy couldn't help but notice a small group of predator kids standing near the door to the house. Just as Judy was about to greet them, the entire group immediately scattered, all of the collars that she managed to catch sight of turning yellow, which unnerved her greatly.

"Hey Jackson, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?" she asked, admittedly curious.

She could see the apprehensive look on the bear's face out of the corner of her eye as they continued walking, but the young kid willingly answered.

"I'm six. I'm going to be seven in about a week."

"Well, happy birthday!" said Judy, putting a smile on her face despite the maelstrom of thoughts that were going through her mind.

Jackson couldn't help but smile at the well wishes, especially coming from a cop like Judy was.

Once the two of them finally reached the door to the building, she was about to knock on the door itself when she quickly noticed the list of names on the side of the door.

Quickly realizing that this was an apartment building, Judy scanned through the names before hitting the button next to the ones she was looking for.

"Hello? Who is this?" asked a voice from the other side of the speaker.

"My name's Officer Judy Hopps. Is this Mrs. Cynthia Grylls?" she asked, noticing the feminine tone of the voice.

"Yes, it is. Are we in trouble?"

Judy quickly noticed the tinge of fear in Mrs. Grylls's voice, so she quickly moved to assuage them.

"No, ma'am. I just have your son Jackson with me."

"You do? Did he do anything wrong?" asked Cynthia, her tone switching to one of slight nervousness.

Judy briefly considered just telling the truth about what happened, but with how strained the relationship was between predator and prey nowadays, she had no idea how Mrs. Grylls would react.

"No, everything's fine with him, ma'am. He just ran into some…trouble…on his way home. I just helped him get home."

At the mention of the word "trouble", Judy could hear an audible gasp coming from the other end of the line before a buzzing noise signaled to the rabbit that she could go in.

After leading Jackson up the stairs to the floor where he lived, Judy knocked on the door to his apartment, which quickly opened to reveal a visibly frightened Cynthia Grylls immediately wrapping her arms around her son.

"Oh, thank god you're okay!"

"I'm alright, mom. I just got a little roughed up," said Jackson, sounding noticeably more confident now that he was reunited with his mother.

"Roughed up? By who?"

Judy was noticeably jumpy after hearing that last question, but before she could try to change the subject, Jackson had already answered her question.

"They're just some kids I never liked from school. They were all prey."

The mother looked noticeably distraught after hearing what her son had to say. However, instead of confronting him or Judy on that fact, she immediately hugged him once more.

The interesting thing that was happening while this was going on was the fact that her collar turned yellow, which puzzled Judy.

"Thank you so much for bringing my son home for me, Officer," said Mrs. Grylls as she raised her head to face Judy.

"Oh, it's no problem, ma'am. I'm just doing my job."

Judy waved goodbye as she prepared to return to her cruiser, but before she could do so, she could clearly hear something else being said by Mrs. Grylls as she led Jackson into their apartment.

"And here I thought that the ZPD didn't have any officers who were looking out for us."

Judy stood there for a moment as the door closed, realizing just how bad things were for the predators. Sure, she was well aware of the fact that Bellwether had long had a prey-first mentality when she assumed office, but she never thought that things would get this cruel that even the predators themselves were losing faith in the ZPD.

Shaking her head, Judy began making her way downstairs as she began to wonder if it was even worth staying with the force with how bad things have gotten in the city.

* * *

Back at the boundary between Happytown and Sahara Square, Nick and Finnick had already set up their next con. Nick was sitting on a nearby bench, some dirt artfully placed along his shirt and body to make it look like he was poorer than he already was. He also managed to muss up his fur a bit to look extra dirty, just to convince onlookers that what they were seeing was someone struggling to make ends meet.

As for Finnick, he was sitting just off to the side inside a baby stroller, the screen placed just far enough down so that it hid the fennec's face, as well as the collar on his neck.

Finnick was also wearing the same elephant costume that he'd used way back when, but the hood was down, mostly because he only needed the bottom part to keep the illusion up.

Unfortunately, no one seemed to be biting at first, even after Nick kept up his act looking as despondent as possible, a hat sitting nearby to collect the money.

The lack of takers was starting to irk the normally calm and collected fox, so he decided that he needed to take some drastic measures.

Adjusting his position on the bench, Nick reached over towards the stroller and pulled the screen back just enough so that he could stick his head in and speak to Finnick without anyone catching on.

"Come on, Fin. I need you to start crying a bit for me. I'm doing my best out here, but you're not pulling your weight!"

This comment earned Nick a pacifier in the face courtesy of Finnick spitting it out of his mouth, as the fennec quickly went on the defensive.

"Hey, I told you already that I wanted nothing to do with putting this stupid costume on again! Why in the heck couldn't we have gone with my idea, huh?" he said, fuming.

"Look, first off, the costume's worked in the past. Why wouldn't it still work now?" said Nick, holding up a clawed finger to tick off his first line of reasoning.

"Oh, I don't know," said Finnick sarcastically. "Maybe it's because this is a prey area of town, and they're more concerned with the fact that you're a predator?"

"Oh, come on! I know the mayor's been breeding a culture of fear against our kind for the past few months, but they can't all be completely heartless!"

Finnick stared at Nick for a few seconds, stunned that Nick tried to pull this kind of answer.

"It's been two months, Nick! How have you not realized that this has nothing to do with being heartless and everything to do with them being scared to death of predators like us?"

Nick was admittedly a little stunned to hear that coming out of Finnick's mouth so casually, but he did his best to remain composed, not wanting to make things worse and trigger his collar.

Sighing, Nick glanced over across the street to make sure no one was watching, and seeing no one around, quickly turned back towards his partner.

"Alright, fine. You just be your cute little self, and I'll knock them dead with my virtuoso acting performance," he said, giving a little flourish with his paw to prove his point.

Instead of latching on to Nick's cheesy joke like the fox expected, Finnick ended up latching on to the entirely wrong thing in Nick's mind. Finnick's paw snapped forwards, grabbing Nick by the shirt and pulling him forwards so that they were almost snout to snout.

"You call me cute one more time, and I'm going to beat your face in with my bat," he said, his teeth bared to show just how threatening he was being.

Nick was more than used to Finnick's threats by this point, having heard the fennec threaten to bite his face off more times than he could count. However, he quickly noticed the fact that the light on Finnick's collar turned yellow. The comment he was about to say immediately died in his throat as he was forced to find a way to calm the raging fennec down.

"Hey Fin, you're triggering your collar. Calm down before you get yourself buzzed."

"Promise me you'll never call me cute again, and I will," he said, his voice calm even though Nick could tell he was still seething.

"Okay, I promise. I know I won't even look good with a bashed in snout, anyway."

Thankfully, Finnick ignored Nick's snide comment, as the fennec was too busy breathing in and out to relieve some of the anger he was feeling.

The next few seconds were tense, as Nick watched the box attached to Finnick's collar closely, waiting for it to return to green.

After a few more seconds, the light did eventually turn back to green, and Nick let out a sigh of relief. Even though he would willingly admit that Finnick could use a bit of a buzz to get him to lighten up a bit, he still never wanted to see it happen to someone he knew as well as he did.

However, before the two of them could make a move to clear things up now that the threat has passed, they were interrupted by a voice from nearby.

"Excuse me, sir. Is everything going alright with your child?"

Nick nearly jumped, not expecting someone to have come by after so much time has passed since they arrived.

"Oh no, everything's fine." he said, sounding as in control as he could manage while he slowly turned around to face whoever was behind him.

It came as a bit of a surprise to Nick, though, when he found that it was in fact a young rabbit. The rabbit himself was a little bit frightened as well when he saw the imposing looking fox in front of him, but thankfully Nick was able to quickly think of a way to relieve his fears.

"Whoa! Hold on there, buddy. I'm not going to eat you. I promise."

Thankfully, this did apparently seem to do the trick, as while the bunny's expression did not change that much from his original look of nervousness, he didn't immediately run away, instead taking a few steps away from Nick.

Confident that he's got the rabbit's attention, Nick lowered his arms and tried to strike up a conversation.

"So…I'm assuming that you're probably not originally from Zootopia?" he asked.

The rabbit was admittedly a little puzzled after hearing that first question.

"How did you know?"

Nick couldn't help but let out a nervous chuckle as he recalled past events.

"I knew another bunny just like you a couple of months ago. She looked like what you'd expect from a country girl who had just moved to the city. Lost…looking to fit in…stuff like that."

Although a little put off by the implications of Nick's descriptions, the rabbit remained composed but silent, which forced Nick to change tactics.

"Okay, this isn't going well so far. Let's try things again."

Nick held out his paw.

"Nick Wilde. Pleasure to meet you."

"Randall Thumper," said the bunny, only giving Nick's paw a passing glance as he refused to go anywhere near it.

Slightly dismayed by the refusal to shake hands, Nick lowered his paw to his side as he decided to move on.

"Anyway, how long have you been here?"

"It's…uh…my first week here. Just moved in from Bunnyburrow."

"Really?" said Nick with an air of surprise, despite inwardly fistpumping after another successful read of another animal.

"Yeah. I'll admit that you did kind of read me pretty well. I haven't had a chance to go shopping yet."

"Oh, that's fair," said Nick, waving a paw in the air as if to show that he understood where Randall was coming from. "I'm kind of the same way. I don't have a lot of other shirts besides the one I'm wearing right now."

Nick could see Randall glance down and study his shirt and tie for a few moments, and the fox knew things were going well when he could see the look of pity on the rabbit's face.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Nick, knowing that he had the rabbit in the palm of his hand, was about to go in for the kill and ask for money, but surprisingly Randall was quicker to the punch, changing the subject as he looked over at the baby stroller.

"So, how old is your kid?"

Nick paused, the sudden change in subject not registering in his brain immediately, but after a few seconds, he managed to pull himself together.

"Oh, he's almost two years old. He's just a playful little scamp," he said, still trying his best to keep his cool demeanor going.

Unfortunately, his normal routine was immediately shattered after hearing the next question that Randall had to say.

"Can I see him?"

Nick's eyes widened in surprise, his mind going blank as he desperately tried to pull the con back to his advantage.

The fox quickly reached over into the stroller, stuffing the pacifier back into Finnick's mouth before completely covering the stroller's inside with the shade.

"I'm sorry, he's not very good with people he doesn't already know," he said, quickly thinking up an excuse.

Randall was not to be denied, though, as he began walking towards the stroller.

"Nonsense. I'll just be a couple of seconds, and then I'll be on my way."

Despite Nick's attempts to stop him, Randall pulled the shade back, only for his eyes to widen and the feeling of terror to return as he clearly saw the collar around the supposed infant.

Finnick tried his best to pull Randall's attention away from the collar, but the rabbit was already on his feet, running across the street as Nick was forced to give chase.

"Wait! I'm sorry, okay? We're not bad people!" yelled Nick to pretty much no one considering Randall was deaf at that point.

Nick was never really all that athletic, even with his lanky frame, so the much faster rabbit lost him pretty quickly.

Slowing to a stop, Nick paused to catch his breath, his paws on his knees as he looked towards where Randall had disappeared around the corner.

What Nick didn't realize, though, was that he was still clearly on the street, and in the middle of catching his breath, he failed to notice the car that was coming his way.

"Nick, look out!" yelled Finnick, the fennec quickly climbing out of the stroller as he noticed the oncoming car.

Nick unfortunately froze, but as if by some miracle, the car came to a stop only a few centimeters from running into him, the fox recoiling in fright.

Before he could actually start to thank whatever god was there that he was still alive, however, the occupant of said car, which Nick saw was a police cruiser thanks to the black and white paint job, came as a complete shock, the fox's jaw nearly dropping as he saw the rabbit inside.

"Carrots?!"


	3. Chapter 3

While Judy continued to follow the roads out of Happytown into the rest of Savannah Central, her thoughts were a complete jumbled mess.

As much as she wanted to focus on getting back to her patrol route so that she could just forget this whole mess never happened, the faces of the bear family continued to pop into her head, with their scared faces knowing the fact that the collars were their lives now showing out quite a bit for her.

When Judy came to a stop in front of a red light, she quickly pressed her paws to her face, dragging them upwards and across her ears as she reflected on what had transpired so far today.

It didn't take too long, though, before she remembered seeing the group of children managing to trigger the warning on their collars as they ran off, and that fact simply befuddled her.

I mean, sure, she never really had all that much experience with how the tame collar functioned considering she wasn't even born yet when they were originally banned, but she never really expected that they would be programmed to trigger when a predator experienced too much of practically any emotion.

Judy immediately latched on to the complete injustice of that kind of method, the rabbit becoming slowly angry as she remembered how terrified each of the predators she'd ran into over the last few months were.

The fact sickened her so much that she even considered quitting the force. She clearly remembered hearing about some incidents from her fellow officers about predators basically being treated as less than dirt compared to prey. However, when she went to Chief Bogo about what she'd heard, she was shocked to find that the cape buffalo's hooves were tied.

* * *

"I'm just a figurehead at this point, Hopps. Mayor Bellwether makes most of the personnel decisions these days."

"This is unbelievable!" said Judy, throwing her paws into the air in disgust. "I can't watch Bellwether run Zootopia into the ground like this!"

"Believe me, Hopps, I want to see Bellwether gone as much as you do," said Bogo, his voice stern. "She's already passed a law that prevents us from removing her from office. I don't know what else I can do!"

* * *

Judy clearly tried her best to convince Bogo that there was still a chance to defeat Bellwether, but there was no helping him at this point, and it even got to where she was beginning to lose hope in the city.

As much as she considered just quitting with how oppressive her life was now, the burning desire to make the city a better place never left, so she willingly stuck it out.

However, the feeling soon returned now that she's realized just how bad the tame collars were as a thing. Thankfully, though, Judy was able to turn that dismal feeling into one of determination, as she promised herself that she was going to find a way to defeat Bellwether, no matter what it took.

Unfortunately, while Judy was able to find a new lease on life thanks to reflecting on these events, they also ended up affecting her driving. While it was a definite miracle that she was able to get through Happytown without hitting anything, she returned to the real world just as she passed by one of the borders, only to spot a fox right out in the middle of the road.

Nearly swearing, Judy hit the brakes as hard as she could, closing her eyes so she didn't have to see the fox tumbling over her windshield.

The noise never came, though, as Judy opened her eyes to find the fox unhurt, though frightened, her bumper just inches away from him.

Judy let out a breath, relieved that she didn't hurt the fox, but when she managed to finally get a good look at the fox in question, her eyes widened in shock as she realized just who she nearly ran into.

"Nick?"

Judy stared out of her windshield at the fox for a few more seconds to make sure she wasn't seeing things before quickly pulling the door open and rushing over, wrapping her arms around Nick midsection and burying her face into his stomach.

"Whoa! I never thought you'd be this affectionate after not seeing me for two months, Carrots," said Nick, adopting his normal tone despite the completely random nature of their run-in.

To Nick's surprise (and pain), though, Judy reacted to their reuniting by punching in the side once she released him from her iron grip.

"That's for not taking my calls for two months!" she said, slightly annoyed.

"Ow!" said Nick, rubbing his now throbbing side. "I'm not sure I deserved that."

"Oh, yes you did!" she said, a clawed finger pointed right at Nick's face. "I know that you and Finnick were busy getting forced into Happytown, but that's no excuse for not talking to me for all that time."

Nick was about ready to continue to defend himself, but he soon realized that he didn't want to make things worse between the two of them so soon after they've finally met up again. Plus, he didn't want to end up triggering his collar by getting into an argument.

"Okay, so I guess I do deserve that, then," he said, keeping his voice calm in an attempt to hide what he was really feeling.

Judy simply stared at Nick for a few more seconds, slowly shaking her head before latching herself around his midsection once more. This time, Nick could even feel tears coming from the rabbit, which came as a surprise to Nick considering he only ever saw Judy cry once before, during her apology under the bridge for the infamous news conference.

"God, I missed you so much, Nick. Can you imagine just how I've been feeling just going through the motions every day?"

"It must have been pretty boring. But seriously, we've only known each other for what? A few weeks? Maybe more? Sure, it's been a heck of a lot of fun, but I don't think we're at the point where we'd be missing each other if we spend time away."

"Just shut up and let me have my moment, Nick."

Nick quickly shut his muzzle, allowing Judy to enjoy their moment together. Eventually, though, she finally managed to release Nick once more, and her eyes flew up towards the tame collar wrapped around his neck.

"I can't imagine the collar must have been too fun to deal with, huh?" she asked, noticeably subdued after her outburst of emotion.

"Oh, you don't know the half of it, Carrots," he said, touching his collar with a clawed finger. "Lucky for me, I haven't been buzzed as of yet. Years of experience as a confox really helped with that. Is still itches like crazy sometimes, though."

Judy immediately winced.

"Ooh, I can imagine the feeling."

"Well, try to imagine the feeling of not being able to get under it without triggering the thing. It sucks, believe me. I've had to convince Fin to help me out a couple of times. Let me tell you, he wasn't happy about it."

"Speaking of, where is the little guy?" asked Judy, admittedly curious.

Nick was about ready to answer, but he was interrupted when a voice came from the nearby baby carriage.

"Hey! How many times have I told you not to call me little?!"

Both Nick and Judy looked over towards the baby carriage to find Finnick himself standing inside said carriage, fuming silently as he attempted to pull his elephant costume off of his body.

"He's right over there," said Nick playfully as he pointed out where Finnick was despite his location already being known.

"Hi, Finnick!" she said, waving at the fennec, who ignored her. "I see you've still got that elephant costume with you. How's being Little Toot Toot working out for you?"

Even though Judy was genuinely curious, Finnick rolled his eyes heavily, flipping off the two of them before hopping down from the carriage and pushing it towards his van, which Judy noticed was parked nearby out of sight.

"Wow, someone's being a bit grouchy today," she commented as she turned towards Nick.

"Well, that's Fin for you. I know that you haven't spent a lot of time with him, but that's how he usually is sometimes."

"Yeah, I could tell," said Judy, rolling her eyes. "He nearly beat my skull in with a baseball bat last time we met up."

That seemingly off-handed comment ended up piquing Nick's interest, and he couldn't resist following up on it.

"Really? I don't see any dents anywhere on you," he said with a touch of snark in his voice, earning a giggle from Judy.

"I said 'nearly', remember? He didn't even come close to swinging it before he saw me. That was back when I was trying to find you after the press conference."

Judy winced a little bit, hoping that the subject of the press conference wouldn't end up triggering something bad in the fox, but thankfully Nick remained his usual self, almost as if she never said it in the first place.

"Well, it's a good thing he didn't, I suppose. I told him to get rid of that thing a ton of times, but he doesn't want to give it up."

Without missing a beat, Nick glanced over towards the van before leaning in towards Judy's ear, holding a paw up to the side of his muzzle so that even if Finnick came into view, he wouldn't be able to understand what he was saying.

"I think he might be in love with that thing," he whispered, a sly smile crossing his muzzle as he backed off and watched to see how Judy would react.

Somehow, Judy managed to keep her composure, but Nick could tell that she was having trouble, especially with the corners of her lips quirking into a smile and some unladylike snorts sneaking through.

Eventually, though, Judy did manage to pull herself together, which disappointed Nick a bit, but he let that fact slide, choosing instead to move on to a different subject.

"Well…I guess I'll be seeing you around," he said.

However, as he prepared to walk towards the van, he was forced to come to a stop when Judy called out from behind.

"Nick, wait!"

Once stopped, Nick slowly turned his head to find a noticeably timid Judy, which came as a bit of a surprise to him considering how used he was to the determined rabbit, her spirit normally unwavering.

"Something up, Carrots?" he asked, rotating the rest of his body so he faced Judy once more.

Judy didn't answer immediately, considering she wasn't sure what Nick would think, but she finally managed to speak after a few seconds of working up the courage.

"Listen, I wanted to apologize for almost running you over."

Nick's eyes widened for a moment, the fox pleasantly surprised as he took in the contrite look on her face.

"Hey, you don't have to apologize. I'm not hurt. You're not hurt. Everything's fine, really."

"No, I really think I need to," said Judy, holding up a paw to silence Nick. "I'm normally pretty focused on my driving, but I saw something earlier today that really got to me."

Nick's interest was even more piqued after this new revelation, and while he remained silent, he gestured for her to explain as he gave her his full attention.

As for Judy, she gave a quick explanation of her experiences with helping the bear child home, and while she remained composed the whole time she spoke, Nick could tell that having to recount seeing the collars trigger because the kids in front of the house were scared was really getting to her.

"I mean, seriously! How cruel is it that predators are pretty much forced to live their lives as basically mindless drones? If they experience too much of any emotion I can think of, they get shocked!"

"Hey, you're not going to get any arguments from me, Fluff. I've spent way more time in that dump than you've ever been, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen other preds getting shocked for practically nothing. It's sickening. Frankly, it's even worse for the children! Can you imagine the looks on their faces when their sixth birthday comes along? They finally get their collars, and once the first shock comes, they realize that this is their life now," he said, his face growing haunted as he spoke.

"We need to put a stop to this, Nick," said Judy, a determined look on her face.

Nick, however, was a little more apprehensive.

"I don't know, Carrots. Bellwether's calling all of the shots nowadays. That sheep can do practically anything she wants, and I don't know if there's anything we can do about it."

Judy was admittedly a little dismayed, knowing how difficult it was going to be trying to defeat the mad sheep. However, after realizing just how similar their conversation was to the one she had with Chief Bogo, she knew that she had to do something different if they were even going to get anywhere.

"No, I'm positive that we're going to find a way. We can't give up!"

Judy paused for a moment, her head lowering a bit as she reflected on the gravity of their situation.

"If we're going to free Zootopia, we can't give up…not even for a second."

Judy could feel her ears sag a bit as the weight became a little difficult to bear on her own, but they soon began to regain their form when she saw a red-furred paw make its way into her line of sight.

She slowly raised her head to find Nick, a smirk on his face as he continued to hold his paw out.

"I'm ready to free Zootopia when you are, Fluff. What do you say?"

Judy was a little caught off guard by the sudden change in his demeanor, but after taking a few seconds to collect her thoughts, the smile slowly returned to her face, and she reached out with her own paw.

The two of them shook paws to seal the deal, but it wasn't long before the partners hit their first snag.

"So…what do we do now?" asked Nick, looking away from Judy so that she couldn't see the apparent look of nervousness on his face.

Judy was a little unsure about what to do at first as well, but after a few seconds of thought, she finally managed to figure something out.

"How about we go our separate ways for a little while?"

Nick looked noticeably taken aback by Judy's proclamation, but thankfully Judy was able to quickly explain herself before things got worse.

"Look, I think we could probably use some time on our own to think of where we're going to go from here. You do your normal thing, and I'll do mine. We'll meet up tomorrow afternoon and hopefully we can come up with a plan."

"Okay, that sounds fair," said Nick, understanding the plan now that Judy had a chance to explain it. "Where do you think we should meet?"

"I'll think of something and text you, alright?"

Nick nodded, and the two of them finally went their separate ways, Nick to Finnick's van and Judy to her cruiser.

* * *

Little did the two of them know was that the street they had their conversation on was being monitored. The nearby camera swung towards each of them as they entered their cars, and Mayor Bellwether just happened to have her eye on that camera the entire time.

Unfortunately, the cameras lacked sound thanks to an oversight from Mayor Lionheart's regime, but that didn't stop the sheep from picking up the phone nearby and dialing the number that she only ever used for emergencies.

"Doug? Keep an eye on Nicholas and Judy. I think they're up to something."


	4. Chapter 4

Apologies for the wait, you guys. My last computer died on me, so I had to get the dumb thing replaced. Things thankfully ended up working out, though, so here you guys go.

* * *

As Nick and Finnick pulled out of the outskirts and headed back into the boundaries of Happytown, Nick couldn't help but be lost in thought as he sat in the passenger seat of the van.

Honestly, he was almost beginning to feel comfortable dealing with life as it has become over the last while. Sure, having to spend your entire life suppressing any emotions so that you don't get shocked sucked, but considering his track record so far, he was pretty sure he did a good job.

After his freak run-in with Judy, though, his outlook definitely changed, and he wasn't really all that sure if it was for the better. Frankly, he was just asking for it agreeing to help Judy defeat Bellwether, especially considering how many times he's come close to snuffing it during their investigation into the Night Howlers.

Still, if it meant not having to wear those stupid collars anymore, he was all for it.

Nick sighed heavily as he stared out the windshield into the streets in front of him, the buildings around him becoming shabbier and shabbier as they went deeper into Happytown. This ended up catching Finnick's attention, and while the fennec was more than happy to forget everything that had just happened and get back to what they do best, he couldn't help but be a little worried after seeing the look on his partner's face.

"Nick, look…I know I'm not exactly the first mammal you'd go to for life advice, but I can see something's on your mind. You, uh…want to talk about it?"

Finnick's expression became pained as he realized just how poorly that came out, but thankfully Nick didn't notice. He could pretty easily tell how reluctant Nick was in the first place, but after a few seconds of thought, he finally spoke up.

"Hey Fin, you ever think about the time when we didn't have to wear these stupid collars, and we didn't have to live in a dump like we do now?"

Finnick was admittedly slightly puzzled by the reaction he got, but he quickly pulled himself together when he realized just what Nick was implying.

"You do realize that what we're living in now can barely be considered an upgrade to what we were doing before, right?" he asked.

Nick opened his mouth to reply, but before he could actually speak, he soon realized that the fennec did have a point. Both of the foxes spent most of their time on the streets, but Nick did have an apartment before. Sure, it was probably the worst apartment you could probably imagine, but at least he had one. He never really bothered to ask Finnick about that factor, though, considering he never thought it was that important, but now that things have changed, he figured that it was probably best to finally find out.

"Okay, I'll give you that one. My old apartment was barely any better. What about you, though? I don't think I've ever asked you about where you lived when we weren't hustling."

Nick glanced over towards Finnick just in time to notice the slightly distant look on the fennec's face, and he hoped that he didn't touch a nerve or anything.

"Oh, you don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to. I know more than anything that there's times where it's best not to say something."

"No, no. It's alright. I'll tell you," said Finnick, sounding strangely calm as he spoke.

This kind of unnerved Nick, but he remained silent.

"Do you remember that place I showed you under the bridge a while back?"

Nick nodded, clearly remembering the time he spent under that same bridge, the lawn chair and umbrella setup being where he spent most of his time when not roaming the city. He could even remember the infamous apology that Judy gave him not too long ago that he recorded on her pen that was unfortunately no longer in one piece.

"Well…it turns out that I actually spend the night there most of the time. I would have gotten an apartment like you did, but seriously. You try spending most of your days having to jump to reach the doorknob."

A picture did admittedly pop into Nick's head of Finnick's entire body curled around a doorknob, but thankfully he was able to resist laughing due to the fact that he was more concerned with what the fennec admitted as it pertained to his former living arrangements.

"Seriously? Why didn't you tell me about this? I would've been more than happy to let you live with me," said Nick, surprised.

Finnick's expression changed pretty quickly, though, to one of slight annoyance.

"Hey, I appreciate the generosity, but first off, we're only partners. People'll start asking questions if we start living together."

Nick couldn't help but roll his eyes at the poor reasoning, but Finnick continued on without stopping.

"Secondly, I can barely deal with you when we were together. Living together would just have made things worse."

"Well buddy, I'd hate to break it to you, but you'd probably better get used to it now that we're forced to live together."

Finnick really did not look happy after hearing that comment from Nick, but there was nothing he could say to argue against it. Even with prey outnumbering predators nine to one, there were still a lot of predators inside Zootopia, and they were all shoved into the boundaries of Happytown. The town was pretty decently sized, but it was soon filled up after everyone was relocated, which forced Finnick to shack up with Nick despite him making every effort not to.

"I don't believe I'll have to, Nick. I'd bite your face off before I ever get used to having you around," said Finnick, an air of indifference with his words laced with a little bit of vindictiveness.

Nick, however, wasn't fazed, as the fox couldn't help but chuckle.

"You're adorable, Fin. You keep telling yourself that."

Finnick growled in anger, but he knew that as much as he argued, he most likely wasn't going to get anywhere considering he was all bark and no bite, as much as it pained him to admit it.

"Alright, so what's with you and the bunny cop? I was a little busy getting out of that stupid elephant costume, so I didn't catch the entire conversation."

Nick was admittedly a little reluctant to share what he and Judy had planned, considering there was a pretty high chance that anyone he told could easily tell the government, which would only lead to trouble considering both him and Judy would be fugitives.

However, even with the somewhat complicated relationship they had, Nick trusted Finnick. It also helped that he hadn't even had a chance to come up with a plan anyway, so there was a limited amount of information that he could even share.

Sighing heavily, Nick decided to just go ahead and go for it, figuring there wasn't really much else to lose.

"Now Fin, before I tell you, I need you to promise me that what you hear next remains between the two of us and Carrots. I don't want to risk the wrong people knowing what we're planning."

Finnick was admittedly a little taken aback with what he was being asked to do, but there was really no reason for him to disagree, so he nodded.

"Fine. Now, what in god's name are you going on about?"

Nick glanced over towards both sides of the van, watching for anyone who would be spying on them. Thankfully, with the speed they were going, it was pretty unlikely they would be able to be heard, especially with the van's windows fully rolled up.

"Carrots and I are going to find a way to take down Bellwether and free the predator population from her oppression."

Finnick paused, unsure of what to make of Nick and Judy's plan.

"Nick…seriously. The world isn't as black and white as you think it is. Just because you get rid of that sheep doesn't mean everything's going to magically become better. There's an entire prey population that's still scared to death of being eaten by us! Heck, I'm beginning to believe that they won't even stop treating us like second class citizens, even without Bellwether legitimizing their actions."

"I realize that, Fin. I'm not stupid," said Nick, slightly annoyed.

Finnick glanced over at Nick for a few seconds while he was at a stop sign and noticed the look of determination on the fox's face.

"I'm not treating removing Bellwether as an end all be all. It's more of a step in the right direction. Frankly, it would at least be nice to get these stupid things off. I'm sure Carrots would agree if she were here," said Nick, pointing towards his collar as he spoke.

Rather than try to drive his point home, Finnick sighed as he realized that Nick was more than capable of understanding where he was getting at.

"Alright, Nick. Is there anything you think I can do to help?"

Nick lazily opened his muzzle to reply, but he soon involuntarily whipped his head around in shock, completely not expecting the answer Finnick gave him.

"Whoa, hang on! Are you sure you know what you're getting into? Carrots and I barely survived our last encounter with Bellwether. What makes you think that this time is going to get any easier?"

"I don't!" snapped Finnick, the fennec's tone immediately silencing Nick.

The van fell silent for a few seconds as the weight of Finnick's outburst showed on both of their faces. Eventually, though, Finnick sighed heavily before continuing to speak.

"I'm well aware of how dangerous this can be, Nick. You remember Koslov, right?"

"Yeah, I remember Kevin…especially when him and Raymond threw me and Fluff into a limo to take us to Mr. Big."

Finnick was admittedly a little puzzled, staring at Nick incredulously as the fox casually brought up his last meeting. Soon enough, though, he was quickly able to pull himself together so that he could say what he was originally planning to say.

"Well, I don't know if he's mentioned it to you or not, but he's got a son named Morris. Loves the little guy about as much as you'd expect for a daddy like him."

"Your point?" asked Nick, although he did manage to resist adding his condescending tone in a bid to avoid pissing Finnick off.

"I went over to visit a few weeks ago. I met the little tyke myself. Unfortunately…that day happened to also be the day that he received his collar. I tell you, the look on his face when he realized what his life was going to be like now was a look that I never wanted to see on a kid's face again."

By that point in their conversation, the two of them had finally managed to pull into the parking space in front of their house, which gave Finnick an opportunity to look Nick in the eye.

"And that, Nicky boy, is why I'm prepared to do anything to make sure that it never happens again, no matter if I've seen it or not."

Nick paused, taking the time to take in the determined look on his partner's face before chuckling a bit, scratching at the uncovered part of his neck before finally speaking.

"Wow. You are a feisty one."

Finnick was about ready to snap, thinking that Nick was making fun of him, but to the fennec's surprise, Nick's expression was actually pretty endearing.

"Well, I don't know about Carrots, but if you want to help us out, I'm more than happy to let you join the team."

Nick held out his paw, intending to seal the deal. As for Finnick, despite his conviction in what he had just said, he did end up hesitating a little bit, staring at Nick's paw for a few seconds before finally shaking it.

"Then it's settled! Come on, let's head inside. I've got just the thing for us to celebrate our new partnership."

Finnick couldn't help but roll his eyes, but he willingly followed Nick as the two of them made their way into the building where their shared apartment was located.

However, they weren't as alone as they thought, as on a bench across the street from the house sat a large ram, pretending to read a newspaper so that it hid their face. It didn't take too long, though, before the newspaper dropped to reveal none other than Doug, the ram quickly folding up the paper and walking off as he dialed a number on his cellphone to report his findings.

* * *

Being by herself in the patrol car, Judy had a lot more time to think as she made her way back to the precinct to check in.

She did admittedly try her best, though, in an attempt to figure out a plan of attack for Bellwether, but unfortunately, as she soon figured out, figuring out a plan was way more difficult than she thought.

Getting in to City Hall would be nearly impossible. Ever since Bellwether had officially asserted herself as mayor of the city, she had quickly ramped up the security of the entire building, so getting around was extremely difficult without authorization for practically every wing.

The only real way to even have a chance to turn Zootopia against her was to prove that she was behind the Night Howler incident in the first place, just like they were originally trying to do during their time inside the Museum of Natural History.

Unfortunately, with her carrot pen destroyed and there being no sign of any replacements despite every effort she made to find one, proving it was going to be extremely tough.

Still, though, she had Nick to help her, which came as a bit of a surprise to her considering she was beginning to believe that they had officially gone their separate ways after the failure of the Night Howler case. It almost felt to her that the two of them reuniting was a message of some sort, almost as if they were meant to be together.

Judy did admittedly consider that for a few moments before quickly shaking her head, realizing just how dumb it sounded in her head. She was never really that much of a religious person, so she never understood why some people felt that way.

Judy, however, was soon roughly pulled out of her thoughts when the radio crackled to life, the deep voice of Chief Bogo coming through the other end.

"Officer Hopps, come in."

Judy had just come to a stop at a red light as the message came through, so she quickly pulled the speaker off of the hook and hit the button.

"This is Officer Hopps."

"Hopps, please return to the station as soon as possible and meet me inside my office. I have something important I need to share with you concerning a case."

Judy paused, a little puzzled as she tried to figure out what Bogo had in mind.

"Copy. I'm on my way. Hopps out." she said, her tone a little distracted as she returned the speaker to its hook.

Thankfully by that time Judy was already not too far from the precinct, so after making her way into the main square, she pulled in to the precinct and parked the cruiser, heading towards the front doors as she tried to figure out what in the world Bogo meant by something important.


	5. Chapter 5

As Judy pulled into the precinct's parking lot, her thoughts were still swimming within her head as she tried to figure out what was so important that she needed to be pulled off of patrol duty.

She initially wasn't so worried, but after giving it some thought she began to realize that there was a distinct possibility that Chief Bogo was hiding something.

Sure, in the past Judy had found no reason not to believe everything the chief was saying, especially considering that would probably affect her continuing to have a job. Now, though, his vague explanation as well as his tone of voice made her believe that there was something more to it.

Unfortunately, she didn't really get enough time to piece it out, as the telltale rumble of the engine told her that she had let the cruiser run for way too long.

Shutting the engine off, Judy hopped out of the car and locked the door behind her before heading inside the precinct. After greeting Johnathan at the desk and deflecting a question about what she was being called in for, Judy made her way up the stairs to Chief Bogo's office, only to be surprised when she found Bogo himself standing just outside the office with the door closed.

"Hopps," greeted Bogo, the buffalo looking surlier than usual, which came as a bit of a surprise to Judy.

"Hello, Chief. What are you doing outside of your office?" she asked, curious.

Instead of answering immediately, Bogo sighed heavily.

"I have a confession to make, Officer Hopps. The reason I called you in had nothing to do with a case."

Judy's expression quickly changed to one of bewilderment as she registered what Bogo had said.

"Then what was it?"

"The mayor wishes to speak with you. I apologize for not being more…forthcoming…about it, but she said it was the only way to get you to agree to come in."

"Well, I apologize for what I'm about to say, sir, but why don't you go back in there and tell her I'd rather jump into a fox's mouth than speak to her, huh?"

Bogo looked like he was about ready to fly off of the handle himself with the amount of insubordination that Judy was showing, but he did manage to keep his temper in check, slowly breathing out before speaking.

"Officer Hopps, need I remind you that this is the mayor you're speaking of? I understand your feelings about her, but she can easily fire you just as much as I can."

Judy managed to keep her mouth shut as she noticed the vaguely threatening tone that Bogo had in his voice.

As for Bogo himself, once he was satisfied that Judy wouldn't try to immediately kick Bellwether in the face once the two of them met, he reached over towards the door and opened it, gesturing for Judy to walk through.

"Please, step inside."

"Aren't you going to join me?" asked Judy, concerned as she noticed Bogo not moving.

"The mayor told me that she wanted for this conversation to remain private…just between the two of you."

Judy was admittedly still pretty concerned, as she wondered just what Bellwether wanted to talk about.

After taking in a breath to calm her nerves, Judy walked through the door as Bogo shut it behind her with a hoof and walked off with a sigh.

* * *

While Judy was already well aware of her presence inside the room, it still irritated her to no end to Bellwether sitting in Bogo's chair, a smug smirk on her face as she regarded the bunny officer standing in front of her.

"Thank you for joining me, Officer Hopps. I'm glad to see that you can still follow directions."

Judy didn't reply, instead giving Bellwether the darkest glare she could muster. Unfortunately, the mayor was barely fazed, as she gestured towards the chair standing in front of the desk.

"Please, sit. We have much to discuss."

"I'll stand, thanks," said Judy, a disgusted look on her face as she walked up next to where the chair was so that the two of them could see eye-to-eye.

"Please. I insist." said Bellwether, a flash of anger showing on her face as she gestured more forcefully towards the chair.

Judy briefly considered egging her on some more, but after realizing just how much the sheep was capable of, she reconsidered, reluctantly sitting down in the way too large for her chair.

"Good. Now that we've got that little nagging issue out of the way, let's get started," said Bellwether, her sunny disposition returning now that Judy was where she wanted.

Judy, however, wasn't in the mood to play along, and she quickly went on the offensive.

"What do you want from me, Bellwether? Isn't it enough treating the predator population like third class citizens? Now, at least from what I can tell, you're prepared to bully a prey animal like me just to get your way."

Judy fell silent, looking at Bellwether as she expected the sheep to be caught off guard by the sudden onslaught of heavy-handed questions. However, to her surprise, Bellwether instead smiled devilishly as she folded her hooves on top of each other and placed them on the desk.

"Before we move on, I'd like to lay down some ground rules. One…you'll always refer to be as Mayor Bellwether, no matter the circumstances. I rule this city, and I want nothing more than to be treated like I own this city!"

Bellwether slammed her fist into the table, and while Judy did flinch a bit, she remained composed. She had absolutely no intention of following said rule, but for the intents of keeping the conversation civil, she decided it was best just to follow along, even if having to say it almost made her want to throw up.

"Secondly," said Bellwether, holding up another hoof. "I will be asking the questions in this conversation, so if you think you can turn things over to your corner like you thought, you are sorely mistaken."

Judy remained silent and stone faced, following Nick's mantra of never letting Bellwether see that she got to her.

As for Bellwether, while she was a little disappointed that Judy wasn't as intimidated as she thought she would be, she decided that she did end up getting her point across, so she decided to move on.

"Anyway, I'm not going to beat around the bush here. I'm going to ask you one…simple…question. What are you planning?"

"Excuse me?" asked Judy, adopting a confused tone despite a trace of panic popping up in her expression.

"I know that you and Nicholas Wilde met on the border to Happytown, and I want to know why!"

"How did you know about that?" asked Judy, noticeably nervous.

"Did you forget about the fact that I have surveillance cameras dotted all around town? I can see everything going on around town. The only problem is that I can't hear what's going on, which is why I'm here. Now, I'll ask again. What were you and Nicholas planning?"

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. Nick and I just ran into each other by pure accident."

Bellwether could tell that Judy was playing dumb, but unfortunately for her, Judy was a very stubborn rabbit, and convincing her to play by her rules was going to be pretty difficult.

Thankfully, Bellwether had an ace in the hole, but she didn't want to reveal it just then, so she decided to take another shot at talking her down.

"Oh please. Do you really think I'm going to fall for that 'playing dumb' act? I may not know what exactly you two were planning, but I know that something is going on."

Bellwether let out a breath through her nose, the air slowly rushing out before she finally continued on.

"I'm going to give you one more chance to answer me honestly before I have to resort to drastic measures. What…are you…planning?" she asked, her voice dropping into a whisper as she asked that all important question.

Judy, however, remained silent. Even though she was admittedly nervous, she essentially called Bellwether's bluff, hoping that what she had just said was simply hot air.

Unfortunately for her, though, Bellwether wasn't kidding. Once she was sure that Judy wasn't going to answer, Bellwether shrugged before digging her cell phone out of her pocket and unlocking it with a swipe of her hoof.

"Fine. If you want to play ball, I'll play ball with you. You remember Doug, right?" she asked, giving Judy a pointed look as the rabbit began to sweat a bit.

Judy kept her mouth shut, instead nodding as she realized that something was going completely wrong.

"I'm glad to see you do remember him. Anyway, I've had him following your friend Nicholas around for the last…oh…hour or so."

Judy began to notice the sickeningly sweet smile that Bellwether had on her face as she spoke, and it began to really make her worry for Nick's safety.

"What did you do to him?" she asked.

"Nothing yet. However, that can change unless you decide to play along with me."

Bellwether then showed the phone's screen to Judy, which happened to have Doug's contact information right on it, a button press away from sending a call.

"All I have to do is make one simple call, and Nicholas's life is going to become a living hell. I'll make sure of that."

Despite Bellwether not revealing exactly what they were going to do, the implications ended up doing just the trick, as her worry for Nick's safety completely overrode her attempts to prevent Bellwether from finding out what they were planning.

"Please, don't!" said Judy, reaching out with one of her paws as if she was trying to prevent the mayor from putting that call through.

Thankfully, Bellwether seemed to get the message. After closing the contact list on her phone, she set her phone down on the desk before resting her arms on said desk, leaning forwards as she gave Judy another devilish smile.

"Now, that wasn't so hard, was it? Go on. Tell me what you two are planning."

After realizing that Bellwether had managed to paint her into a corner, Judy frantically tried to figure out a way to get out of this mess without completely screwing up their plans.

While she did have a general idea of what she wanted to do, namely finally expose Bellwether as the true mastermind behind the Night Howler incident, she technically had not had an actual plan to set into motion, so there was really no reason to be worried. The only problem was convincing Bellwether.

With a newfound sense of confidence, Judy slowly breathed in and out before finally answering.

"Nothing."

Annoyed, Bellwether was about to reach out and grab her phone again, but before she could do so, Judy held up a paw, which Bellwether thankfully noticed as she held her hoof.

"I'm not finished. What we're planning, Bellwether, is to take you down and free the predator population from those horrible tame collars and massive oppression that your 'regime' has put them in," she said, an accusing finger pointed at Bellwether's face as she spoke.

Instead of being intimidated, though, Bellwether simply smiled as she ignored the finger in her face.

"So I'm assuming that, judging from what you've told me before, you have no plan to follow through on that threat, am I correct?"

Even though Judy wanted to make every attempt to show that she had the upper hand, she reluctantly nodded, partly because of the fact that she did have no plan and partly in the hopes that Bellwether would drop the subject.

Thankfully, judging from the look of glee on her face, it seems like she did in fact fall for it.

"Oh, that is just precious! You two think you can take me down so easily, and yet you don't even have a plan to go on!"

Judy tried her best to tune out the giggles that were coming from Bellwether, her embarrassment at getting ridiculed almost palpable.

Eventually, though, the laughs soon subsided, and Bellwether finally managed to collect her thoughts again.

"I really should have the both of you arrested for plotting against the mayor, but I think I'm probably just going to let you go. You two are just so pathetic; I don't think you'd even survive jail, to be completely honest."

Bellwether's constant putdowns did end up touching a nerve in Judy, but she thankfully managed to still keep her mouth shut as she adopted a despondent look on her face.

The mayor soon fell silent as she regarded the meek looking bunny rabbit in front of her. Judy began to worry a bit as the time that she spent looking at her was beginning to make her believe that she'd done something to make Bellwether change her mind about arresting her and Nick.

However, to her surprise, Bellwether grabbed her phone, sticking it back in her pocket before hopping down from Bogo's chair and walking around the desk so that she was once again visible to Judy.

"I may be letting you go right now, Officer Hopps, but please don't do something to make me regret doing so. You're one of our best officers, and I can't imagine the kind of press the ZPD would get if their best officer gets arrested for treason."

Judy only spared a glance in Bellwether's direction, but thankfully the mayor didn't take it as hard as Judy expected her to. Instead, she simply made her way through the door before shutting it behind her.

Once the sound of Bellwether's footsteps became silent as the sheep got far enough away from the door, Judy finally let out a breath that she didn't even know she was holding in. The tenseness of the entire conversation was almost unbearable to her as she placed her head into her paws and left them there for a few seconds.

After taking a few breaths to calm herself down, Judy finally released her grip on her face, hopping down from the chair as she prepared to leave.

However, as she made her way over to the door, she stopped as she soon realized that there was something else important that she needed to do.

"I need to go find Nick. He needs to know about this."

Her next step already planned out in her head, Judy reached for the door and stepped through, shutting it behind her as she began making her way to the exit, a determined look on her face as she wanted to make absolutely sure that Bellwether regretted her decision to let the two of them go.

Bellwether was smarter than Judy thought, though. As she made her way back into City Hall and through the multiple security checkpoints, she pulled out her phone and dialed Doug's number once more.

"Doug? Send Woolter or Jesse out to keep an eye on Officer Hopps. I think she's hiding something. Yes…I still need you to watch Nicholas."

Bellwether quickly ended the call, a dark look on her face as she returned to her office.


	6. Chapter 6

Thankfully, nobody made any moves to stop Judy as she made her way out of the precinct, so she was quickly able to make her way outside and to her cruiser.

However, as she pulled out of her parking spot, she soon realized that she never actually found out exactly where Nick was living nowadays.

"Happytown can't be that big. All I need to do is look around, and I'll find his house soon enough," said Judy in an attempt to convince herself of the validity of her plan.

Unfortunately, while it didn't exactly help, she couldn't exactly just give up and hope that Nick found her first, so after spending some time steeling her nerves, she finally pulled out of the precinct's lot, heading in the direction of Happytown in the hopes that he was still within the area.

* * *

Unfortunately for Judy, while she was unable to find any reason to believe that Nick did exit Happytown, the search within its boundaries proved to be a lot more difficult than she thought thanks to that part of the city being much larger than she originally thought.

Groaning in protest, Judy briefly considered returning the cruiser to the precinct and looking for Nick's house on foot, especially considering the amount of looks she was getting from the predator population.

The only problem with that option, however, was the fact that the distance between the main square where the precinct was and the nearest boundary to Happytown was pretty far away so walking, especially at the time of day it was, would have been a complete waste of time.

So, after debating the options in her head for a few minutes, she chose to drive on, doing her best to ignore the stares she was getting.

After a while, it began to get to the point where Judy was considering giving up and hoping that nothing bad happened between now and when she had a better chance of finding him.

"Ugh, if only I remembered to get his phone number!"

By a massive stroke of luck, though, as she was mentally kicking herself for forgetting to get the fox's phone number, she barely managed to catch a fennec fox out of the corner of her eye.

She quickly slammed her foot on the brake, nearly slamming her face into the wheel from how quickly her body moved forwards from the sudden stop. She ignored the close brush with pain to look behind her as she soon realized that she recognized the fox in question.

Smiling widely now that she found someone she knew, Judy quickly released herself from her seatbelt and almost flew out of her cruiser as she rushed over to him.

"Oh Finnick, I am so glad to see you!" she said, resisting the urge to hug him considering she could see his baseball bat nearby.

Finnick, obviously, was noticeably caught off guard by Judy's sudden entrance considering he was focused on something important, so it took him a few moments to register exactly what was going on in front of him.

"Holy…bunny cop? What in the heck are you doing here?" he asked.

While initially a little dismayed that Finnick had yet to learn her name, Judy had more important things to worry about, and so she decided to ignore that little slight.

"Hey, have you seen Nick around? I've got something really important to tell him."

Finnick was about to just go ahead and tell her, considering he really wanted to get what he was doing done and head back inside. However, the conversation he had with Nick inside the van came back to his mind, and he put two and two together and realized something.

"Is this something to do with that sheep mayor?"

Judy's eyes immediately widened upon hearing what he said, as she never expected this line of questioning. Just as she was about to ask him about it, though, she glanced across the street and realized that she completely forgot about the cameras recording their every move.

"Can we take this inside? I'm worried that we're being watched right now," she said, quickly scanning around the area to make sure they weren't being spied on outside of the cameras.

Finnick gave Judy a weird look, the fennec beginning to think that she was starting to sound like one of those conspiracy theorists he saw sometimes on the TV before the real programs started to run.

However, after realizing that there was no real point to not go along with settling Judy's paranoid urges, Finnick sighed heavily before gesturing towards the nearby house.

After uttering a quick thanks, Judy quickly walked over towards the house with Finnick close behind, the former wanting to make it look like nothing suspicious was going on.

She was pretty lucky, too, as Doug just happened to be sitting on the same bench across the street from the house that he'd been on for the past hour or so since he was tasked with spying on Nick. After folding the newspaper up and tucking it under his arm, the ram walked off to a private area so he could relay what he'd found out to Bellwether.

* * *

Once the front door of the ramshackle house was closed and they were confident that no one was looking in, Judy sighed herself before finally saying what she was originally about to say.

"So how did you know?"

Finnick stared at Judy for a few seconds, wondering just what was going on through her mind at that moment, before finally answering.

"Nicky told me everything. I wanted to join your little crusade, especially after what I've seen."

Judy didn't seem thrilled after hearing what Finnick had said, although it was mostly because of the fact that Nick had pretty much blabbed their entire plan to him. However, the fact that Finnick wanted to help was what really got Judy's interest.

"Are you sure about this? You do know that this is most likely going to be dangerous, right?"

Finnick rolled his eyes, groaning softly as he looked up into the sky.

"Of course I'm aware of that! I've already been through this whole spiel with Nicky."

While slightly surprised at Finnick's outburst, Judy was at least somewhat comfortable with the fact that he was aware of the risks he was taking, so she nodded and smiled.

"That's good to hear. I'm glad that we've at least got someone to help out. Anyway, have you seen Nick around?"

"He's somewhere around here. We've been living together since the preds got shoved into Happytown."

Judy uttered another quick thanks to Finnick. However, before she could begin to look around the house, she was forced to quickly stop as Finnick spoke up once more.

"Hey, hold on! You never answered my question about what's so important that Nicky needs to know about."

Judy was about to answer when her ears perked up to the sound of footsteps coming from a nearby room. After a few seconds of tense silence in the hopes that it wasn't somebody from the government, though, she soon realized that it was in fact Nick, as the fox in question came through the doorway into the room.

"Well, look who it is! I'm surprised that you've managed to even find this place, Carrots," he said, his normal smirk on his muzzle as he regarded the scene in front of him.

Instead of replying to Nick, Judy walked over to where Nick was standing and punched him in the arm, earning a satisfying yelp from the fox in question.

"Ow! What was that for?" he asked, rubbing his arm where the impact was in an attempt to relieve the pain.

Judy didn't answer immediately as she was too busy returning to where she was originally standing. Once she did make it back, though, she finally spoke up.

"That was for blabbing our entire plan without running it by me first! I know it's Finnick, but what if someone else heard? Then we're done for!"

"Hey, how do you expect me to tell you about this when I don't have your phone number? Huh?" asked Nick, slightly annoyed at the tone Judy was taking.

What came as a surprise to Nick, though, was that instead of trying to argue, she pulled out her notepad and a generic pen, scribbling something on a piece of paper before ripping it in half and handing both halves to the two foxes in front of her.

"There's my phone number. Now neither of you have any excuses."

Both Nick and Finnick gave Judy weird looks considering the way she was acting. After a few seconds, though, they both pulled their phones out and typed the phone number into their contacts, quickly typing out texts so that their numbers could be sent to her phone.

Once she typed both of their numbers into her phone and stuffed it back into her pocket, she sat down and gestured for them to join her as well.

"Okay, so what's all this about, Fluff?" asked Nick, slightly miffed at how badly this visit was beginning to turn out.

Nick waited for Judy to finally explain why she was even there in the first place, but he ended up managing to catch a slight change in her expression, which admittedly puzzled him.

"I think we all need to be really careful now. Bellwether's on to us."

As she looked at both of the foxes in front of her, she quickly noticed the disbelieving look on Nick's face, so she ended up having to go into some more detail.

"I should probably start from the beginning."

Judy let out a big sigh before finally beginning to speak.

"After I left you guys this morning, I got a call to come back to the precinct. They told me it was something to do with a case, but when I got there, imagine my surprise when I found that you-know-who was there."

"Bellwether was there?" asked Nick, looking more convinced by the second as his eyes widened up to the point where they were as big as saucers.

Judy nodded.

"Yeah, and she wanted to talk to me. Needless to say, she was pretty suspicious about what we were planning, but I did manage to keep my mouth shut."

"Well, that's good news," said Finnick, his tense expression deflating in relief.

"Does she still think we're up to something?" asked Nick, looking noticeably nervous.

"Most likely. That's why we need to be careful. There's no telling if they're watching us or not, either now or in the future."

"How in the heck did she even find out, anyway? We were pretty far away from City Hall, at least as far as I could tell."

"It's the cameras, Nick. She told me that she's got the video feed for a majority of them right inside her office."

Nick immediately winced once he realized just how much of a foothold that Bellwether had on this city.

"Hoo boy, this is going to make things pretty tough for us."

"Well sure, but all we need to worry about is making sure that we're not in an open area when we're speaking about stuff like this. I mean, if we can't make it inside a building, then we at least should be able to find a dark alley or something so we can't be seen."

"But we can still be heard, right? I doubt a dark alleyway would help keep our conversation private when it came to the cameras," commented Finnick.

"Actually, that's not an issue. I don't think Bellwether meant to say it, but the cameras don't record sound. So, unless someone in City Hall knows how to read lips, I think we'll be safe."

"Okay, that's a good sign. At least we're not entirely hosed," said Nick.

The three of them fell silent, happy that their plan wasn't an immediate bust. However, there was still the fact that none of them really had a plan to go on, so Judy knew that they needed to think of something so that they could move forwards.

"Alright, so do either of you have any ideas as to what we can do to prove that Bellwether was behind the Night Howlers?"

Knowing Nick as well as she did, Judy wasn't expecting to see Nick have something in mind, but to her surprise, Nick did in fact speak up.

"You know, I was wondering. What did ever happen to the case full of Night Howler pellets we found? I was kind of busy worrying about you to keep track of it."

Judy paused, realizing she did in fact forget about that key piece of evidence they had.

"I honestly couldn't tell you. If I had to guess, though, I imagine Bellwether must have taken it with her after the ZPD showed up."

"Oh yeah, that sounds about right. It's too bad that they didn't ask to see inside it. I would have loved to see the look on her face when she realizes just how close she came to her plan succeeding."

"Well, unfortunately that didn't happen. Now let's get back to the plan, huh?" said Finnick, wanting to steer the conversation back on track.

Both Nick and Judy glanced over at Finnick before the former cleared his throat.

"Okay then. Now, I'm guessing that if what you've said is true, then she most likely stored it somewhere inside City Hall. Do you agree with that?"

Judy nodded.

"Yeah, I think so. City Hall is about as secure as you'd expect, so there's a pretty high chance it's there. The only problem is how do we get it?"

The three of them fell silent once more as they tried to formulate a possible plan to get into City Hall. However, the answer ended up coming from someone who Judy didn't really expect.

"I think I know someone who can help out," said Finnick.

Judy looked over at Finnick and was puzzled to find that even Nick looked surprised to hear what the fennec had to say.

"Really? Who?" he asked.

Instead of answering, Finnick climbed up on to the table and whispered the answer into his ear, which did annoy Judy a little bit.

"Hey, what's with the secrecy all of a sudden? I thought we're going to share things between the three of us!"

Despite the wary look that he had on his face, Nick took it upon himself to explain their reasoning.

"Sorry Carrots, but the guy Fin's talking about is pretty secretive. Only a few mammals even know his name, and he has a strict rule not to share his name with outsiders, especially cops. No offense."

"None taken," said Judy, although she was a little curious as to why this mammal would go to these lengths to protect himself.

"Speaking of, you're going to have to ditch the uniform and cruiser. I'm sure you can imagine why," said Finnick.

Obviously, Judy was well aware that she was going to stick out like a sore thumb if she went in what she was wearing, so she nodded before standing up and heading towards the door.

Just as she was about to leave the room, though, she turned back around to face the others.

"Hey, do either of you know where the Grand Pangolin Arms is located?"

Nick was the one who nodded, and as he gave Judy an inquisitive look, she explained her reasoning behind this question.

"As you can imagine, I don't have my own car, so I'm going to need you to pick me up after I've changed. I'm kind of far from here, so I'd say I'd probably be about an hour. Sound good?"

Both Nick and Finnick nodded, the latter less enthusiastically.

Satisfied, Judy waved goodbye to the two of them before heading out to the cruiser, ready to finally put this plan into action and stop Bellwether once and for all.


	7. Chapter 7

Unfortunately, Judy's journey back to her apartment ended up being delayed a little bit.

Dropping the cruiser off wasn't all that huge of a problem, but when she had to go in and notify Johnathan where she was going, she ended up catching the attention of Chief Bogo, who had heard pretty much everything she said to the receptionist.

"Where do you think you're going, Officer Hopps?" he asked.

Judy, having been facing away from Bogo when he spoke, grimaced before turning back around to face him.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I need to clock out a little early today. I've just found out that I've got something really important I need to take care of back at my apartment."

Judy fell silent, thinking that she was being vague enough so that Bogo would let her go without having to go into more details about their plan, but she could tell from the look on the cape buffalo's face that he wasn't going to be as easily fooled as she thought.

"Nice try, Hopps. Now, how about giving me an actual answer as to why you need to leave…a half an hour before your shift ends?" he asked, checking his watch to find out the time.

Almost panicking, Judy tried to go in a different direction.

"I need to meet someone back at my apartment. I tried to push the time forwards so that it wouldn't interfere with my shift, but he wouldn't budge!"

"Hopps…" said Bogo, starting to get angry from being given the runaround. "Don't push me, or I'll make sure that you get parking duty for the next two months! Now give me a bloody straight answer!"

Unfortunately, as much as Judy wanted to just go ahead and work the rest of her shift, she had absolutely no time to do so, so in a last ditch attempt, she blurted the first thing that came out of her mind.

"I'm going on a date, alright? I have to get ready, and you know how we can get after a long day on the streets, right?"

Judy quickly squeezed her eyes shut once more; waiting for the inevitable outburst and follow through on his threat, but to her surprise it never came.

Instead, she heard an audible sigh, and after slowly opening her eyes, she found that Bogo had his hoof against his forehead, clearly rubbing it to relieve a headache coming on.

"Fine, go. I do expect you to stay for a half-hour tomorrow to make it for it, though."

Judy was admittedly a little stunned, not expecting for that pitiful-sounding excuse to work, but after a few seconds letting it register, she was immediately brought back to reality, and she quickly began making her way towards the door.

"Thanks, Chief! I promise I'll make that half an hour up to you!"

As Judy made her way outside, Chief Bogo audibly groaned, looking up at the ceiling as rubbed his face with his hooves.

"Something wrong, sir?" asked Johnathan, having been present for most of the conversation.

"It's nothing, Hoofson. Get back to work."

Johnathan watched, slightly puzzled as Chief Bogo made his way upstairs, one thought running through his mind as he glanced over the balcony at the atrium below.

"That rabbit is going to be the death of me."

* * *

Unfortunately, with the delay, Judy ended up having to rush home to even have a chance to get ready before Nick and Finnick came to pick her up.

Thankfully, though, the city actually seemed to be working with her for once, as she managed to get a nice streak of arriving at crosswalks just as they were permitted to cross going.

Eventually, she managed to reach the front door of the Grand Pangolin Arms. After uttering a quick greeting to Mrs. Armadillo, Judy bounded up the stairs to her floor, nearly knocking her door off of its hinges as she rushed to grab a change of clothes.

Once that part was done, she went into the shower room, which was thankfully not occupied (and was frankly a miracle considering how long some of her neighbors on the floor took their showers).

Newly refreshed after a nice hot shower, Judy put her new clothes on, which was a simple grey t-shirt and sweatpants combo (even in her rush, she did manage to keep in mind what they were planning to do).

She then made her way back to her room and laid her uniform out on her bed so that it wouldn't get wrinkled before she had a chance to hang it back up.

It was just in time, too, as Judy's ears perked up when she heard the telltale sound of someone honking their horn.

Now, being in a city like Zootopia, honking horns would seem like a normal occurrence to some people, and most would probably think that it was just some mammal with a road rage issue.

However, as she quickly glanced out of her window, she noticed the garish design of Finnick's van and jumped.

"Oh cheese and crackers, they're here!"

Judy bounded back out of the door, nearly forgetting to lock it up. Once she did, though, she made her way down the stairs and back out the door before pulling the back door open and hopping inside.

"Looks like someone's in a hurry," commented Nick as he watched Judy shut the door behind her.

Judy wasn't in the mood to play around, though, so as she worked on catching her breath, she pointed a digit in the fox's face.

"You…be quiet. I need…some time…to catch my breath."

Nick brought out his signature half-lidded smirk as he looked at the digit in front of him, but he willingly remained silent, allowing Judy to finish catching her breath while Finnick pulled the van out of its parking spot.

Eventually, the sound of heavy breathing soon stopped, and Nick took it as a sign that she was now ready to go.

"You all good, Carrots?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Now, where are we headed to?" she asked.

"A place deep inside Happytown. Crime's so bad in that area, not even the police dare to go inside," said Finnick.

"Really?" asked Judy, having not heard about that area. "Wouldn't that just lead to it eventually spreading if they don't take care of it?"

"Well…here's a little secret for you, Fluff. Our friend used to work for Mr. Big. Thankfully, though, he still seems to be in good graces with the little guy, so he worked out a deal with the ZPD precinct that covers Happytown," said Nick. "As long as the police stay out of that territory, the criminals inside will stay within their boundaries."

"That doesn't sound like a really good idea. I mean, what's to stop someone from taking out a business or something outside of the boundary?" asked Judy, puzzled.

"Well, it's worked out so far, hasn't it? Besides, they're not just random looters. They all work for Big as well. I doubt the little shrew would be very happy if something like that happened."

Judy was still a little wary about this agreement, but she could also see Nick's point, so she remained silent, allowing Finnick to continue speaking.

"Anyway, I suggest that you let me do the talking, I used to work with him back in the day before I met Nicky here, so I think I have the best chance of convincing him to help us out."

Judy paused, reflecting on what Finnick said, before another question came up in her mind that she really felt needed to be answered.

"So…that's all well and good, but what does this guy even do? You two are speaking like he's the end all be all of criminals, but this doesn't explain how he's going to help us get into City Hall."

Finnick glanced over at Nick, becoming increasingly annoyed at the fact that he was delving way too much into their friend's backstory.

However, as Finnick and Nick turned to face front again, Nick failed to notice Finnick's collar turning yellow thanks to his current emotions.

"Look, I really shouldn't be-"

"Oh, come on! We're all in the mess together, so I think I at least deserve a hint about what this guy is that we're dealing with," interrupted Judy.

It was then that Nick noticed Finnick's collar changing to orange, meant as the last warning before a shock was triggered, and it didn't look like the fennec was calming down any time soon, especially after being interrupted like he was.

"Hey Fin, you might want to chill a bit before you get buzzed."

Nick had seen Finnick get shocked a few times before. It came with the territory when one had a temper problem like the smaller fox did.

Finnick, however, was barely listening to what Nick was saying.

"Fine. He's a professional thief, and he's-"

"Then why haven't I heard of him, then? You'd think the ZPD would have at least some files on him."

"Will you let me finish?!"

Judy was immediately shocked into silence by Finnick's outburst, but she wasn't the only one shocked, as Finnick's collar triggered, emitting a loud BZZAP as she could see the arcs of electricity coursing through the small fox's neck, a yell of pain coming from his maw.

Judy right away knew that she did something wrong, but before she could make a move to apologize, she soon realized that the van was swerving out of control thanks to the driver being too busy getting zapped to focus on driving.

Thankfully, though, Nick was there, grabbing the steering wheel and getting the van back under control and bringing it to a stop just before it rammed into a light post.

Once the van came to a stop, the occupants inside were for the most part quiet outside of a string of quiet curses being uttered by the victim of said shock.

"You okay, Fin?" asked Nick after taking a few moments to calm his rapidly beating heart.

Finnick didn't answer immediately, no doubt still a little stunned from the shock, but he eventually gulped, his throat feeling a little like sandpaper, before finally answering.

"I'll be alright."

Nick was admittedly a little surprised by the short and succinct answer, but he took it as a good sign. However, Judy was still pretty worried, mostly because it was her fault to begin with.

"God Finnick, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you like that," she said, her voice timid as the guilt pervaded through her every word.

However, she was met with a small paw rising into the air, the side with the pads facing towards the front in the universal gesture for stop.

"I said I'm fine. Let's just get this over with."

Finnick reversed the van away from the pole before getting back on the road, leaving Judy unsure if her apology even did anything.

Sighing, she fell silent, choosing to watch the buildings go by as the van made its way into the heart of Happytown.

* * *

After what felt like forever, the van soon came to a stop, and as Judy and the others hopped out and closed the doors behind them, Judy finally got a look at the building they were heading towards.

"Is this it?" she asked, gesturing towards what looked seemingly like a normal ramshackle apartment building.

"What do you expect, a fancy mansion?" joked Nick, making an attempt to lighten the mood.

However, Nick's playful banter fell flat, as Finnick still looked pretty pissed off after the shocking incident, and Judy looked pretty downcast.

Sighing, Nick decided that it was probably best just to go out and explain the real reason.

"He may have gotten his paws on a lot of money, but he's still a pred. Not even piles of money were able to convince prey to sell a house to him."

Judy's attention was split between making a note of the fact that this thief was also a predator and feeling despondent for the conditions that the preds were in when even one of the richest members of their class was unable to get out of the slums.

Falling silent, Judy began to follow Finnick as the fennec fox started to make his way inside the building. However, before he could make his way forwards too far, he ended up bumping right into Nick's leg, coming to a stop.

"Hey, what's the deal?" he asked, annoyed as he rubbed at his muzzle.

Nick at first didn't look too pleased, but after a few seconds of silence, he sighed, his eyes closing for a few seconds to clear his thoughts.

"Look…Fin…I get that you're miffed about what Carrots did, but if we're going to pull this off, we need to all be on the same page. I think you two need to kiss and make up."

"What? No! I'm not kissing her!" said Finnick, a disgusted look on his muzzle as he looked over at Judy, who looked surprisingly puzzled.

"No, I don't mean it like that. I know she technically caused you to get buzzed, but I really think you should take her apology into consideration. I mean, seriously, the guilt's eating her up!"

Nick was obviously embellishing that kind of detail, but when Finnick looked over and saw the despondent look on Judy's face, he realized that it wasn't worth it to stay mad.

"Alright…alright, I get it. I accept your apology from before, bunny cop. Just please don't do it again, okay? Getting shocked like that hurts."

Although Judy did kind of want to point out that it was kind of a given that hundreds of volts coursing through your neck was going to hurt, she didn't want to completely destroy any hope of getting back to where she was with the fennec fox, so she smiled and nodded.

"Thank you, Finnick. I'll make sure to be more careful."

"See that you do. Now come on, we're wasting daylight."

Even though it was already almost nighttime, Judy ignored the slight, following Finnick as he led her and Nick into the building and up the stairs.

The three of them soon came to a stop, though, at the fourth floor when Finnick came to a stop at a door at the end of the hallway.

Judy waited with bated breath to finally see what the two foxes were building up to, but to her confusion, Finnick didn't make a move to knock. Instead, he stood there, blankly staring at the door.

"Something wrong, Fin?" asked Nick, curious.

"Nah, I'm alright. I'm just a little nervous."

"Nervous? How can you be nervous?"

"I haven't seen him in years. Ever since I met you, Nicky, our interactions slowly became fewer and fewer before we stopped talking altogether. I just…I don't know what he'll think."

"Ah, come on, I'm sure things will be alright. Heck, I bet he'd be more than happy to see you again."

Finnick was admittedly still a little reluctant to follow through, but it turns out that he didn't have to, because Nick reached over and knocked on the door himself.

After a few seconds, Judy's hearing managed to pick up footsteps coming up to the door, and when said door opened, the mammal in the doorway was someone who Judy would have never expected to see.

"Clawhauser?!"


	8. Chapter 8

Judy stood, blinking owlishly as she registered the rotund cheetah standing in front of him.

"Hey…Judy…" said Clawhauser, waving awkwardly as his other paw clutched the door handle.

"Wow…how've you been? You look…different."

Judy was so used to seeing Clawhauser in his police uniform that seeing him in a sweater vest, polo shirt, slacks and jacket came as a bit of a surprise to her.

"I've been doing alright. I guess this is at least a step up from being stuck down in Records all day. It's nice to take a break from wearing the uniform, too," he said, shrugging as he tugged at his jacket sleeve.

"It's too bad. I kind of miss you back at the precinct."

"Yeah, I kind of miss it there, too," said Clawhauser, looking wistful. "I kind of figured that they'd forget me considering I was down in the basement, but apparently City Hall didn't want to take any chances. But hey, at least I don't have to be next to the boiler. It made things super-hot down there."

The two of them soon fell silent, reflecting on how things have went within the past two months, but it didn't take long before Judy put two and two together and realized something.

"So…are you guys telling me that Clawhauser is…"

"No! No, he isn't," said Finnick, sounding exasperated. "Frankly, I don't know what the heck he's doing here."

"Sorry, that's my fault for confusing you guys. My apartment's a few doors down. I was just visiting," said Clawhauser, wringing his paws as he finally released his grip on the handle.

"It's fine. Just…is he home right now?" said Finnick, clutching at his head with a paw to relieve an oncoming headache.

"Oh yeah, he's here! Last I saw him he was in his bedroom."

"Great! Come on, let's go meet him," said Nick.

Squeezing past Clawhauser's bulky frame, Nick and Finnick made their way towards the bedroom. Judy, however, didn't quite follow them yet, as there was one more question about Clawhauser that was really bothering her.

"Hey Ben, what's with the glasses, anyway? I don't remember ever seeing you wear glasses back at the precinct."

"Oh, these?" he asked, adjusting his glasses as he spoke. "I'm actually nearsighted. I can't really see things all that well far away."

"I guess that must be why you were the receptionist, right?"

"Well, that and…" trailed off Clawhauser, gesturing towards his own body.

"Right…sorry. Well, it's good to see you, though," she said, her voice becoming meek as she apologized to the cheetah.

"You too."

* * *

Her business with Clawhauser finished, Judy made her way towards the room Nick and Finnick disappeared into, and she found the two of them talking to an otter that she for a second thought looked like Mr. Otterton.

However, after a few more seconds, she soon realized that Mr. Otterton being a famous thief sounded extremely hokey, so she pushed that thought to the back of her mind as she stepped forwards.

"Ah, Carrots. Glad you could join us," joked Nick, earning the fox a glare that he ignored.

Judy waited, expecting for one of the two foxes to introduce her to their friend, but to her surprise, it was the friend himself that stepped forwards to greet her.

Instead of shaking her hand, though, the otter studied her. Judy could see the green light shining on the otter's collar as he bent every which way, his lithe form still studying her closely.

"Why'd you bring a cop with you, Fin?" said the otter nonchalantly, catching Judy off guard as she didn't expect the otter to see through her so easily.

"How'd you-"

"I watched the press conference like most everyone else in the city. I saw how you blamed the preds going savage on their biology."

"It was a mistake, okay? I panicked!" said Judy, exasperated about having to relive that horrible moment in her life.

"Sure you did…" said the otter, his tone making it sound like he didn't believe her for a second.

For a few seconds, Judy looked like she wanted nothing more than to leave considering the otter didn't seem to be able to get past one of the biggest mistakes she's made as an officer, but thankfully Nick was there to calm the tension.

"Leave her alone, Eric. Even I forgave her for that, and she was basically groveling on her feet!"

"Nick!" shouted Judy, embarrassed at much the fox was embellishing the way that she apologized to him under the bridge.

Nick was only able to shoot her one of his patented sly smiles, as his focus was on the otter apparently named Eric, who seemed like he was trying to decide if it was worth looking past that moment.

"Alright, fine. I'm willing to work with her if she promises just one thing for me," he said, holding up one finger.

"Name it," said Judy, more than willing to go along with what he had in mind.

"Promise me that no matter what happens, you will never under any circumstances mention who and where I am to the ZPD. I'm not going to work with a cop if they're just going to turn around and have me arrested the second I'm not useful to them anymore."

"But…you're in Mr. Big's territory. Didn't you guys say that the police stay out of this area?" she asked, looking towards Nick and Finnick as she spoke.

Both of them nodded, but before they could speak, Eric had already beaten them to the punch.

"I'm only under his protection if I stay within the boundaries, cottontail. And considering I'm a thief, that's not something I'm liable to do," said Eric, sounding calm even though he looked like he wanted the throttle something.

Judy was still a little wary about Eric's real intentions, but they had no chance to get into City Hall otherwise, so she willingly sucked it up and reached out with her paw.

"Okay, I promise. Once this is all done, it'll be like you never existed."

Eric wasn't thrilled with Judy's choice of tone when making that promise, but it was probably the best he was going to get, so he decided just to go ahead and move on.

Walking over, Eric grabbed Judy's paw with his own and shook.

"Eric Shellton."

"Judy Hopps," said Judy, deciding to still go ahead and introduce herself even though Eric had already mentioned seeing her during the press conference.

"Swell. Now that introductions are over…Finnick, old friend. What brings you and your little friends over to my neck of the woods?" asked Eric, turning towards the fennec fox once releasing Judy's paw.

Finnick cleared his throat before finally speaking.

"We need to find a way inside City Hall."

Judy could see the otter's eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

"Wow, you guys aren't screwing around. City Hall's locked up like Fort Knox. I don't see how you can manage to get in, to be completely honest."

Judy was noticeably disappointed to hear the bad news from Eric, but she knew that they couldn't just give up that easily, even if City Hall was going to apparently be as tough as you can get to break in to.

Opening her mouth, she prepared to try her best to convince Eric to go along with the plan despite the odds being against them, but to her surprise the otter held up a single finger.

"However…"

Judy closed her mouth, waiting for Eric to finish his sentence, but he didn't complete it at first. Instead, he lowered his arm back to his side before walking towards a nearby closet.

Opening the door, Eric began rummaging around before pulling out a large roll of paper and spreading it on the bed.

Curious, Judy walked over to join the others, and her eyes widened in surprise when she realized she had a pretty good idea of what the roll of paper was of.

"Wait a second. Is that-"

"These are the schematics of the entirety of City Hall. This, my friends, is what my fellow thieves and I consider as the holy grail of targets. Outside of doing jobs, my last three weeks have been spent poring over this dumb thing as well as casing the building, looking for any signs of weaknesses."

"Have you found any yet?" asked Finnick, having jumped on to the bed to get a closer look.

"A few. Unfortunately, none of them really lead anywhere important," said Eric, shrugging.

"Well…what if you were just trying to get into Bellwether's office? Can we use one of those?" asked Nick, gesturing towards where Eric had marked the weaknesses with what appeared to be black marker.

Instead of answering immediately, Eric turned towards the schematics, poring over the parts of the building as he mumbled to himself.

Eventually, though, the otter's head popped up as he turned to face Nick and Finnick.

"I think probably the closest you're going to get is a vent on the east side of the building," said Eric, pointing towards a circle on the side in question. "If I read this right, you should come out in a bathroom just around the corner from the mayor's office."

"Doesn't sound too bad. If you're up for it, I say we try that method."

Nick looked around the room, waiting to see what everyone else thought about using that entrance.

Eric looked nonplussed, but he didn't open his mouth to argue against it, so Nick took it as a yes.

As for Finnick, Nick could tell that the wheels were turning in the tiny fox's brain as he processed the apparent way they were going to get in. However, as Finnick turned to face his partner in crime, Nick was dismayed to find that he didn't look convinced.

"I don't like this, Nick. I mean…a bathroom just outside of her office? That sounds way too easy for me."

"What's wrong with it being easy? All we have to do is get our paws on that night howler suitcase and we're golden."

Finnick sighed, slightly annoyed that Nick wasn't exactly getting what he was trying to say.

"Nick, you're not getting it. If something seems too easy, then there's a good chance that it may end up being a trap. Seriously, what makes you think that Bellwether couldn't have just had it left open expecting us to try and take that route?"

Nick held up a finger, opening his mouth to make a retort, but after a few seconds, his jaw snapped closed as he considered what Finnick had said.

"You know, you might be right, Fin. Maybe we should try a different route."

Nick folded his paws together, turning towards Eric as he watched the otter silently.

As for Eric himself, he stared back at Nick wondering what exactly the fox was doing, but after a few seconds the silent question finally registered and he realized what he was supposed to do.

After a few more minutes of studying the schematics, Eric had finally found what he thought to be a suitable entrance for what they were going for, pointing at the circle with a finger as he spoke.

"This one here is another vent behind the building. It's going to put you farther away from Bellwether's office, but unless there happens to be guards behind the building, you should have an easier time getting there. Sound good to you guys?"

Both foxes nodded, Finnick less vigorously than Nick.

"Great! Now that our plan's settled, I say we do the job tomorrow night."

"Now, hang on a second. In case you've forgotten, there's one other mammal in this room that we still need to ask." said Nick.

Eric looked slightly miffed at getting interrupted in the middle of laying out the plan, but Nick ignored the otter's look, turning instead towards Judy.

"Carrots…you've been pretty quiet for a while. How about you share with the class what you think of our plan to break in?"

Judy, who was lost in thought, nearly jumped after being addressed so suddenly by Nick. Nervously clearing her throat in an attempt to hide her reaction, Judy finally answered, thankfully having heard enough of Nick's question to figure out what he wanted.

"Well…I am a little nervous."

"You'll be alright. Everyone's nervous during their first time," said Eric nonchalantly.

"Oh no, it's not about that. Ever since Finnick mentioned it, I've been worried that we may just be walking into a trap."

"You're being paranoid, Carrots," said Nick, adopting his normal sly smile in a show of confidence. "We've made every effort to avoid speaking in public about our plans since you warned us about the cameras. What makes you think that they'll have found a way to listen in?"

Judy opened her mouth to argue his point, but then she realized that she didn't have anything to use to refute it, so reluctantly she closed her mouth once more.

"Okay, I see your point. I do have one question, though."

"Shoot."

"Where did you even get these plans, anyway? This looks way too new for something you'd expect to get from the library or something."

Nick admittedly didn't expect that kind of question from Judy, so he glanced over at Eric, who looked like he wanted nothing to do with answering that question, but the otter reluctantly sighed.

"Very illegal methods. That's all I'm going to say, especially to a cop who can rat out my contacts. Need I remind you of your promise?"

Judy was slightly annoyed at not being able to get an idea of where he managed to get plans this recent, but she did remember the promise, so she lightly groaned in protest before acquiescing.

"Alright, fine. You do what you want to do with those plans, but right now, I want you guys to know that I'm in on this plan."

Satisfied that everyone was all in, Eric returned to what he was originally about to say before Nick's interruption.

"Now that this is over with, I'm going to work on planning out our big heist. As for you all, be ready for tomorrow night. If I have to babysit any of you, we're as good as dead."

Everyone nodded in understanding except for Judy, who was a little bit surprised at Eric's blunt assessment of their chances. However, after a few seconds have passed, she too nodded once the otter laid eyes on her.

Once again satisfied, Eric walked over to the bedroom door, which had been closed since Judy shut it behind her when she first entered the room, opening it and sticking his head through the door.

"Hey Clawhauser! You still out there?" he yelled.

Judy fully expected Ben to have left in the time they spent inside the bedroom, but to her surprise, the cheetah's voice came through from across the room.

"Yeah, I'm still here. You need something?"

"Can you show these guys out? I don't want any of the other floors to get any ideas."

"Sure thing."

Eric pulled the door open soon after Ben's reply, shooing Nick, Finnick and Judy out the door where Clawhauser was standing.

"Ready to go?" he asked, smiling.

No one really answered, but he took it as a yes, so as Clawhauser began leading them out of the apartment and down the stairs, Judy couldn't help but ask a question that was on her mind.

"Why'd he ask you to come with us, Ben? I think we're more than capable of taking care of ourselves against some of the other tenants."

Instead of answering immediately, Judy was a bit surprised to see Ben's eyes shift nervously back and forth before finally speaking.

"I really shouldn't be telling you this, but not a lot of people know that Eric lives here. If someone visits, he usually has either me or someone else who lives on that floor show them out so no one gets any ideas."

Even though Judy looked like she was incredibly confused, she basically understood the gist of what Clawhauser was getting at, so as she said goodbye to the cheetah and made her way over to the van, she couldn't help but be a little excited knowing that she was getting into something she never thought she would do in her life.


	9. Chapter 9

The next day felt like a blur to Judy, even considering the fact that she had to stay an extra half an hour to cover the time she missed the previous day.

Luckily, though, when it came to her little white lie about having a date to go to, she managed to get off scot free, as word had apparently not traveled through the precinct. If Clawhauser was still there, she would have had to fend off questions for the next week, so she was thankful for that.

Eventually, the end of her shift came along, and Judy immediately clocked out, waving a quick goodbye to Johnathan before rushing out and heading towards her apartment.

On their way back from Eric's apartment, Nick and Finnick had laid out what they wanted her to do so that she would be ready for the heist tonight. At first, it seemed like what you'd expect to do when trying to break in somewhere, like with wearing clothes that help you blend in and staying focused so that you don't make any stupid mistakes.

What came as a surprise to her, though, was that the next thing they asked was for her to bring along her police-issued tranquilizer gun. While she was definitely very confused at first, wondering why they would need something like that, after some careful explanation, she soon realized that there would be a surprisingly good use for it.

"That tranq gun has got to have a pretty decent dosage if you have to take mammals double your size out. If we bring it along, you can use it if we run into any trouble," she remembered Nick saying.

While she was definitely a little worried that it wasn't going to be as easy as he thought it would be, she pulled the gun out of her pocket, having snuck the pistol out of the building while no one was paying attention.

With her priorities now set, Judy placed the gun on her bed before shuffling through her closet, trying to find something that would work for what they were planning on doing.

Unfortunately, being the eternal optimist that she was, all of the clothes she brought with her on her journey from Bunnyburrow were on the brighter end of the color spectrum, so she would most likely stick out like a sore thumb if she tried anything that was in front of her.

The closest Judy could get to actual darker colors turned out to be a gray ZPD branded T-shirt with blue sweatpants also with the logo branded on the side. While it wasn't the best colors you would choose when trying to stay out of sight, it was the best she could do on short notice, so she quickly changed before stuffing the tranq pistol in her back pocket and began heading back down to the streets.

* * *

Just like last night, when Judy exited the building, the van was parked along the sidewalk waiting for her.

Heading inside, she was greeted by the two foxes in question, as the bigger one looked at Judy with a slightly disappointed look on his face.

"Really, Carrots? That's the darkest you could get?"

"Yes, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not someone who normally would be purchasing clothes to steal things, need I remind you," she said, a slight air of annoyance in her voice.

Before Nick could make a snide remark, Finnick decided to step in, knowing that this was quickly going to devolve into an argument if he didn't make a move.

"That's enough, you two! We're being expected back at the apartment in thirty minutes, so I don't want you delaying us."

"Then what are you doing sitting around then? Let's go!" said Nick, gently making a shooing motion with his paws towards the windshield.

Finnick grumbled in protest, but he remained silent, choosing instead to focus on driving.

As for Nick, he spent the first few minutes of the trip staring out of the nearby window. However, it didn't take long before his eye caught the presence of Judy in the back seat through the rear-view mirror.

While he was happy to see that Judy was smart in what she chose to wear, he still felt that she looked more like she was going for a light jog than preparing to break into the most secure building in the entire city outside of the First Zootopian Bank.

Unfortunately, they had no real time to go out and buy black clothing for her, so Nick knew that he had to take a different route to go where he would be satisfied that her clothing choice wouldn't hinder their mission.

Nick unbuckled his seatbelt, grabbing hold of the armrest nearby for a few seconds considering he chose the exact moment when Finnick took a corner a little too quickly.

Thankfully, despite being lightly flung into the armrest from the force of the turn, Nick was unhurt, and he took the opportunity once Finnick had straightened the van out to hop into the backseat, leaving the fennec fox with a bewildered look on his muzzle.

As Nick managed to climb up on to the seat, he noticed that Judy was still staring out of the window herself, and his jokester side couldn't resist playing around a bit.

"Hey, Carrots," he whispered once he got close enough to her to where she still wouldn't be able to see him coming.

The work he put in soon came to fruition, as Judy let out an un-rabbit like squeal before whipping her head around to face the giggling fox.

Predictably, this led to him getting a punch in the arm for his trouble, and after a few seconds spent calming himself down, Judy finally got the chance to ask the question that she'd wanted to ask since he came back.

"So what possessed you to risk getting flung into the windshield to come back and see me, Slick?"

Nick was admittedly a little reluctant to actually share what was eating him, remembering how she reacted when he first brought it up not too long ago. However, after a few seconds of thought, he soon realized that what he had in mind was more important than risking hurting Judy's feelings, so he sighed before finally speaking.

"Alright, Fluff, I know that we've been through this whole thing about how I'm not thrilled with the colors you're wearing. Let's not get into that right now."

Judy gave Nick a weird look as she wondered what he was getting at, but she remained silent, allowing him to continue after watching him root around on the floor of the van for a few moments.

"Anyway, I have an idea for how we can work around this."

Judy was a little weirded out by the smile that Nick gave, but she didn't really get a chance to protest, because by the time she was able to move, Nick had already stuffed something over her head.

Ignoring the muffled words from the rabbit inside, Nick finished pulling the clothing over her head, slipping her arms into the sleeves before pulling it tight.

"Wow, look at that! I didn't think it'd actually fit you, but it actually doesn't look too bad," commented Nick as he looked at Judy.

Judy looked down at her body, quickly noticing the fact that she now had a black turtleneck on, which did make her look a bit like those robbers that she usually saw on TV, except without the masks.

Her full attention, however, was on Nick as she gave the fox an incredibly annoyed look.

"Seriously Nick? Did you really have to almost smother me under this thing?" she said, adjusting one of the sleeves that had slipped over her paw a bit.

"Hey, I needed to get it on somehow. Besides, I wasn't even sure if you would be up for wearing it anyway."

"All you had to do was ask. I would have said yes," said Judy, exasperated.

"Right…sorry," apologized Nick.

"Who does this even belong to, anyway?" she asked as she tugged at the slightly loose fabric.

"It's Fin's. He usually carries a spare, as you can see. I was a little worried it wouldn't fit, but it looks good enough."

Nick paused to snicker a bit.

"I mean, who would've thought that fennecs and rabbits have similar body types?"

Thankfully, Judy didn't punch him for that comment, but he did get a dirty look.

As for Judy herself, while she wasn't entirely thrilled with what she was given, considering how much of her frame the sweater covered, she resolved to roll up the sleeves and hope for the best.

* * *

When the three of them finally made it to Eric's apartment, they pulled up to find that there was no one waiting for them, not even Clawhauser.

While Judy clearly remembered how secretive Eric was, she was a little surprised to see that he wasn't there to meet them.

Her concerns were quickly assuaged, though, as she was caught off guard by the sudden appearance of Eric himself through the back door of the van, carrying what looked like the schematics of City Hall under his arm.

"Get moving. Now!"

Even though Finnick was a little surprised by the otter's sudden entrance, he quickly pulled out of his parking spot, and they were on their way once more.

"You guys were cutting it close," commented Eric.

"I know, I know. We've still got time, though, right?" said Nick.

"Not a whole lot."

Despite the general bumpiness of the moving van, Eric rolled out the schematics and placed it on the floor in front of them.

"The night shift comes in at 8:00 tonight, which gives us about 45 minutes to actually get into the building and out of our entrance vent. We're going to use the change-over to our advantage and get as close as humanly possible to our target while there's no one around, if not all the way in to the office."

"Sounds good. How far away are we, Fin?" asked Nick, looking towards the front of the van.

"We're just getting out of Happytown. Should be about twenty minutes."

"Good. That should still give us just enough time," said Eric, nodding.

What came next came as a bit of a surprise to Judy, as Eric scampered over before placing both of his paws on Judy's shoulders. After briefly noting her current attire (which he didn't comment on, so Judy assumed that he didn't find anything wrong with it), Eric spoke up.

"I need to make sure you're ready for this, bunny cop. There are no redo's in this line of work. So, all I'm asking is are you absolutely prepared to pull this off?"

"Yeah, I am," said Judy, wincing when she realized that her voice cracked a bit.

"I'm not letting you go in there unless I'm confident that you're ready. Now, try again," said Eric, a stern look on his face.

"I'm ready."

This time, her voice remained steady, and Eric could tell from the determined look that she had on her face that she was ready to do this.

Satisfied, Eric released Judy, quickly going over the path they were going to take through the building before rolling it up and stuffing it into a nearby corner.

The rest of the trip was spent in silence, as everyone was busy preparing themselves for the task ahead. Even Judy was doing it as well, although she was admittedly way more nervous about what they were going to do than the others.

Still, it was too late to back out now, so she steeled her resolve and spent her remaining free time focusing.

* * *

Once they all finally arrived at City Hall, they parked in an out of the way spot where they wouldn't be seen, which turned out to be in an alleyway a few buildings down from the Lemmings Brothers Bank.

Nick, Eric and Judy quickly slipped out of the van while Finnick remained behind to serve as the getaway driver despite the fennec fox looking like he didn't want to spend his entire night waiting inside said van.

Thankfully, though, he stayed put, and the other three quickly made their way over to City Hall, reaching their way inside in almost no time, which they had thankfully taken into account considering all of the security was focused more on the inside of the building.

Once inside the vent, the three of them began crawling with Eric leading the way through twists and turns. Judy was beginning to think that they were eventually going to get lost with how labyrinthine the vent system was turning out to be, but soon enough they finally managed to make it to their bathroom destination.

With Eric still leading the way, the three of them made their way into the hallway, using the patches of darkness created by the lowered lights (in an attempt to save money on power) to avoid being seen by security cameras.

The plan was surprisingly going pretty smoothly, as by the time they actually got into the building, the guard change-over was going on just as Eric said it would, which gave them some leeway thanks to the lower number of guards.

Unfortunately, the plan turned out to be not as perfect as they thought, as just down the hallway from Bellwether's office they nearly ran into a guard that had not vacated the building, if his lack of flashlight was anything to go by.

Eric was just about to lead the others into an adjacent room so that they could come up with a plan of action, but to his surprise a dart suddenly slammed into the guard's neck, and the tiger went down without any real trouble.

"What was that?" whispered Eric, whipping his head around to face the others.

Nick remained silent, choosing to adopt a nonchalant look on his muzzle. Judy, meanwhile, poked her head out from behind Nick, waving the tranquilizer pistol in her paw.

"Sorry about that. I was worried we were going to get caught, so I knocked him out," she said apologetically.

Eric opened his mouth, knowing that the tiger was going to be way too large for them to drag out of sight, but after a few seconds, he sighed, shaking his head before gesturing for the others to follow.

It didn't take much longer for them to finally reach the door to Bellwether's office, and as Eric set to work picking the lock, Judy couldn't help but notice something very strange going on.

"Why are there still no guards around? Shouldn't the night guards be in by now?" she asked.

"Let's just take this as a good thing and move on, Carrots," whispered Nick, his anxious expression showing that he really wanted to get this whole thing over with by this point.

After a few seconds of tense silence, Eric finally managed to get the door open, and once the three of them slipped into Bellwether's office, the otter quickly spotted a painting hanging behind Bellwether's desk.

Being the professional thief he was, he's seen more safes behind paintings than you can count, and this one was no different, as a decent sized safe appeared once he set the painting down on the ground.

However, the otter didn't get much of a chance to start working on cracking said safe, as a suspiciously feminine voice coming from the door made all three of them freeze in their tracks.

"Hands up, now!"


	10. Chapter 10

Even though Judy had a pretty good idea of who the voice belonged to considering the insufferably smug tone that came with it, she quickly turned around only to find that it was in fact Dawn Bellwether standing in front of the doorway, a small gun that she recognized as the one used to fire the Night Howler pellets trained on the three of them.

As Nick and Eric turned around as well to see who got the jump on them, Bellwether smiled before taking a few steps forwards so that she was now fully visible thanks to the light from a nearby window.

"Well, well…look who we have here…a couple of dirty thieves who think that they could steal my Night Howler suitcase and bring me down. I'd like to say nice try, but that would be giving you too much credit."

Judy's eyes immediately widened, not expecting Bellwether to have guessed their plans to the letter.

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess…although admittedly you were kind of predictable. I had a feeling that you two would try to get the case back after I snuck it out of the Natural History Museum. Frankly, I expected something a little more original out of you two, especially after that stunt you two pulled trying to record me confessing," she said, pointing towards Nick and Judy as she spoke.

As for Nick, he finally managed to find his words after registering what was going on.

"So, what are you going to do with that, then? Shoot me?" he asked, gesturing towards the pellet gun in her hoof.

"Well, yes. That was the idea," said Bellwether, acting like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Before Nick could say anything more, Bellwether pointed the gun towards him and fired a shot. However, since she had already telegraphed the fact that she was going to do it, Nick was prepared, ducking as the pellet flew harmlessly over his head.

Bellwether only managed to get a few more shots off, which thankfully all missed, before Nick managed to duck behind her desk, crouching as low as he could to avoid exposing any part of his body.

"Did you really think my desk would protect you? I can easily just walk over a few feet and you're exposed again. God, you're dense," said Bellwether, chuckling as she began walking just as she said she would.

In her haste to dart Nick, though, Bellwether ended up completely forgetting about Judy and Eric. While the latter was focusing more on avoiding getting hit himself (considering he was also a predator), the former was more worried about Nick, having remembered how close Nick came to getting darted himself back in the museum.

After pulling herself out of her stunned state, Judy rushed forwards just as Bellwether was beginning to reload, going down on to all fours and shoulder tackling her.

While Bellwether was a little surprised by the brazen attack from Judy, it didn't take long before she was subdued, Judy pulling her tranquilizer gun out of her holster and pointing it right at Bellwether's face.

"You're under arrest, Bellwether. Don't even try to struggle. We still outnumber you three to one."

Rather than curse her luck at getting caught so easily, Bellwether instead chuckled evilly, catching Judy off guard as she didn't expect her to act this way.

"Oh no, I'm afraid you're quite wrong on the whole 'being outnumbered' thing. As a matter of fact, I have a bit of a backup plan."

"What are you talking about?" asked Judy forcefully, pressing the tranq gun against Bellwether.

"Oh, you'll see. They're on their way right now."

The pressure of the tranq gun on Bellwether's face lessened as Judy tried to figure out just what she meant. It didn't take very long for her question to be answered, though, but not in the way she expected.

"Carrots, look out!"

Judy barely had any time to look over and see that it was Nick who had yelled, his paw pointing towards the office door before she was sent flying, crashing into Nick as she bounced off of Bellwether's desk.

Thankfully, the cushioned landing meant that she didn't suffer any bad injuries, so after picking herself up, she came around the desk to find Bellwether on her feet, surrounded by three massive warthogs in riot gear, all three of them brandishing police batons while other weapons were strapped to their backs, making them look incredibly imposing.

As Judy, Nick and Eric looked on in shock, Bellwether smiled before finally speaking.

"I'd like you to meet the Razorbacks, my elite force of trained bodyguards."

It was then that Bellwether lifted the hoof not holding the gun, revealing a bracelet with a small box attached to it, a small red button glowing brightly on said box.

"Anytime I press this button right here, they come straight here to defend me with everything they have."

"Why haven't we heard about these guys before then? Don't you think that at least someone would have a problem with how you're using the city's funds?" asked Judy.

"Hey, what mammals don't know won't hurt them," said Bellwether, shrugging.

Judy made a mental note of this new revelation before making a move towards her. However, before she could even take a few steps, one of the Razorbacks whipped out a shotgun, forcing her to freeze as the warthog ratcheted it to show he meant business.

"You'll never get away with this."

Judy gave Bellwether the darkest glare she could muster but, just like during their conversation in Chief Bogo's office, the mayor was unimpressed.

Snapping her hooves together, the Razorbacks gathered around Bellwether as they waited for her orders.

"Arrest those three for treason. Feel free to get physical if you need, but I want them all alive, especially the otter in the back."

Eric nearly jumped, not expecting to have been brought into the conversation like this.

"Oh yes, I know who you are. Everyone's going to love me when they find out that I've captured one of the most notorious thieves in Zootopia."

Eric barely had enough time to react once Bellwether signaled for the Razorbacks to make the arrest. Panicking as he noticed the warthog heading for him brandishing a police baton, the otter made a run for it, thankfully not having to worry about a collar getting in the way.

The Razorback was a lot smarter than he thought, though, as he went to cut him off. However, being that otters were incredibly slippery, Eric managed to dodge through the warthog's attempted grab, not even waiting a second before he rocketed towards the door.

As the warthog gave chase to Eric, both Nick and Judy were still dealing with their own problems, mainly having their own Razorbacks creeping closer to them by the second.

Judy, having been trained to deal with these types of situations, quickly formulated a plan before putting it into action.

Just as the warthog she was trying to get around was about to make the grab, Judy bounced upwards, using the nearby desk to springboard over the larger mammal before making a run for it.

Nick, however, wasn't so lucky.

While he did try his best to remain as healthy as possible, he was nowhere near as athletic as Judy, so he had to take a different approach to escape his captor.

Using his shifty nature to his advantage, Nick attempted to fake the warthog out, waiting for the right moment to slip past him and make his escape.

The warthog wasn't fooled, however.

Just as Nick tried to slip by him, the fox was met with a hard shot in the stomach from the police baton in the warthog's hoof, knocking the wind out of him.

The Razorback then quickly cracked him over the head as Nick bent over, sending him down to the floor.

"Nick!"

Still conscious, Nick lifted his head to find that Judy had returned to the room, having heard the thwack that the baton gave.

"Judy, run!" Nick yelled before grunting in pain as the Razorback that took him down kicked him hard in the ribs.

Judy barely had time to register the fact that Nick was essentially sacrificing himself before the Razorback she'd managed to slip past caught up to her, picking her up and holding her to his chest.

What the warthog failed to take into account, though, was that Judy's head was right in front of his, and she took immediate advantage of this error, swinging her head back as she head butted the warthog in the snout as hard as she could.

As the warthog's hooves went to his injured snout, Judy landed on her feet as she attempted to make a move to save Nick. However, she stopped when she noticed Nick desperately trying to wave her off with his paws.

"Judy, no! Save yourself and run!"

This earned the fox another few kicks in the ribs from the nearby Razorback.

As Nick clutched at his side in pain, Judy desperately tried to will herself into rushing forwards and saving Nick from the beating he was getting, but she was unable to resist turning around and running, the sound of Nick's cries of pain (as well as the telltale crackle of electricity) ringing through her ears as she made her way towards the front door, not caring enough to make a subtle escape.

* * *

Thankfully, Judy was able to use the time that the Razorback was stunned to her advantage, slipping away from City Hall as she made her way over to where the getaway was supposed to be.

Luckily, the van was still there, but it was only a small comfort to Judy, as when she managed to pull herself inside and close the door, she was met with looks from both Finnick and Eric, who apparently had managed to give his own Razorback the slip.

"What happened to Nick? Why isn't he with you?" asked Finnick, looking like he was desperate for good news.

It was at that point that the adrenaline of her narrow escape wore off, and it finally hit her what had just happened.

"They have him…" she said quietly.

"What?" asked Finnick, confused.

"I tried to save him, but they were just too powerful."

In her stunned state, she did end up failing to mention that she never actually made an attempt to save him considering she was too frightened with what was going on. However, Finn was more concerned with what had happened to his friend to really dwell on that fact.

The van fell silent as both Judy and Eric watched Finnick register the fact that Nick was now in Bellwether's clutches. His muzzle crinkled up as it began to look like he was trying his best not to cry, but they were both surprised when instead of actually doing so, he loudly swore, banging his fists on the steering wheel repeatedly.

This caused his collar to go off once more, but thankfully it wasn't as bad of a shock as the last time, so the fennec still had all of his senses going once the shock died down.

"Do you want one of us to drive?" asked Judy, worried about the emotional state the tiny fox was in.

To her surprise, though, he shook his head vigorously.

"I'll be fine. We should probably be going anyway before they find us here."

Without waiting for a reply, Finnick pulled the van out of its hiding spot, refusing to look at either of his fellow passengers as he retraced the path he took to get here in the first place.

However, the silence didn't last very long, as Judy voiced a concern that they were most likely all thinking.

"Where are we going to go, though?"

Both Eric and Finnick gave her confused looks, the latter through the rear view mirror. Thankfully, Judy clearly noticed them, so she at least was able to get a general idea of what they were asking and explain herself.

"We're essentially fugitives now. There's no doubt that Bellwether's going to have our faces plastered all over the news in the morning, so we're going to need to find a place to hide out so that the police don't find us."

Judy soon fell silent, but her expression quickly changed once something else clicked in her mind. It didn't take very long for the depression to hit once she realized what she'd done, knowing that going back to what her life was before was going to be almost impossible now that she had a criminal record.

Unfortunately, with Nick not being there, Finnick and Eric were the only ones left to try and cheer her up, and neither of them were really the type to actually do that kind of stuff.

Still, Finnick wanted nothing more than to not have to deal with a depressed Judy, so he sighed heavily before speaking, hoping that things would work out.

"Look, uh…there's a lot of jobs out here in the city. It's not the end of the world if you happen to lose your job as a cop thanks to this. Heck, once we figure out a way to bust Nick out, I'm sure he'd love to have you around hustling other mammals. Having someone of the opposite sex would be great to help us pull off some more jobs."

Finnick didn't exactly know what else he could say, so he fell silent, waiting to see what Judy would do.

"I don't know if I'm cut out for that kind of work, Finn. I'm from Bunnyburrow, remember?"

Finnick never really recalled her or Nick ever mentioning where she was actually from, but she did always have that country bumpkin air about her ever since they met, so he let that go in favor of taking another approach to convince her of the viability of his work.

"So?"

He could see her eyebrows rise in curiosity, so he quickly elaborated after knowing he had her interested.

"Nick and I are pros at this. All we have to do is teach you the basics, and you'd be running cons within the week. Just imagine the amount of money you could make!"

Judy could see an uncharacteristic smile poking out from the bottom of the rear-view mirror, and she couldn't help but smile herself, knowing how much it was unlike the normally surly fennec fox to act like that.

"I'll think about it," she said, mostly in an attempt to placate Finnick. She spent so much time out of her life wanting to realize her dream of becoming a cop that even thinking about getting into that line of work left a deep pit in her stomach.

Finnick couldn't resist chuckling a bit at the playful tone that Judy had as she mentioned her parents. However, he never really had a chance to delve into that offhanded comment, as Eric suddenly spoke up, surprising the both of them considering he's spent most of the ride silent.

"You guys can hide out in my apartment building. I'm sure Ben would love to let you guys stay in his place."

While Judy would have definitely agreed with the fact that Clawhauser would have been more than happy to have some friends to spend time with, she was still a little wary.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Yeah, I do. They may know what I look like, but they still don't know where I live. Besides, we've got Mr. Big looking over us, remember?"

Judy soon realized that what Eric said was true, and she could imagine that Mr. Big would be open to keeping the godmother to his daughter's baby safe, at least once he was notified.

"Sounds good. Let's go."

Shrugging, Finnick continued on his way, all three of them eager to find a way to fix this setback and find a way to get Nick back.


	11. Chapter 11

Getting out of the main square proved to be a little difficult for Judy and the others with the increased presence of guards in the area.

However, once they did manage to get out into the other parts of the city, getting into Happytown wasn't a problem, especially considering the fact that they were long gone once the police was called in due to the failed break-in.

When they knew that they were finally clear, the three of them finally relaxed. Unfortunately, the rest of the journey was taken in complete silence, as they were all still registering the fact that they were now down one fox.

The realization was especially hard on Judy, as she was the one who essentially let him get captured. Sure, Nick was making every effort to tell her to run, but she felt that it was nowhere near a sufficient excuse for being unable to force herself to save him.

Eric and Finnick didn't know that, however, so while she was still very upset with what she'd done, she willingly followed Nick's mantra of never letting them see that they got to you by putting on a straight face, partly because she felt that things would end up getting worse if that news got out.

Eventually, the van passed into Mr. Big's territory once more, and after a few more minutes of silence, they finally pulled up to Eric's apartment building, Judy staring up at the top of the imposing building so that she didn't have to look at what the other two were going through.

When the three of them reached the floor where Eric's apartment was, a nearby door opened and they were quickly set upon by Clawhauser.

"Oh my god, you guys! Are you okay?" he asked. "I've been listening to the police scanners for the past hour or so because I couldn't sleep, and I heard about the break-in at City Hall!"

Judy noticed that Clawhauser's glasses were slightly askew, probably due to the late hour, but she decided not to mention it, choosing instead to focus on the cheetah's question.

Unfortunately, though, by the time she actually was going to follow through with said answer, Eric beat her to the punch, his tone slightly hollow thanks to him confronting the fact that this was one of the few instances where he'd failed in completing a heist.

"We're fine, Ben. Just…we need to hide out for a while. Keep an eye out for anyone coming into the building you don't recognize, okay?"

Clawhauser was a little surprised to hear what Eric was asking of him, but he slowly nodded.

"Sure…I'll keep an eye out."

It appeared for a second that Clawhauser was about to return to his room, but just as the others were about to head into Eric's room, the cheetah spoke up once more, his curiosity piqued as he noticed the missing part of their group.

"Hey, where's Nick?" he asked.

None of the three wanted to be reminded of the fact that Nick was missing, but by that point it was already too late, so Finnick took the initiative to share the news.

"That sheep has him."

Judy could see Clawhauser's paws fly to his mouth as he gasped in shock.

"No…that's terrible! How are you going to get him back?"

"I don't know!"

Everyone was surprised by the sudden outburst, even Finnick, who was the one who had actually said it. Thankfully though, instead of actually following up on it, the fennec fox chose to remain silent as he and Eric made their way through the door into the latter's apartment.

This left Judy alone with Clawhauser, and while she was admittedly a little annoyed at having to deal with their sudden exit, she willingly went ahead and clarified what Finnick had meant (or at least what she assumed he meant).

"We're going to find a way to get him back, Ben. Once this whole thing with the police blows over, I'm sure both of them would be up to find a way."

"Okay Judy," said Clawhauser, slightly surprised by the determined tone that she had. "I trust you."

Judy nodded, satisfied that Ben was okay with what they were doing, before heading towards the door to Eric's apartment.

Just before she actually went through, though, she turned towards Clawhauser, who had followed Judy's idea and went to return to his apartment as well.

"See you later, Ben," she said, waving.

Ben didn't answer, instead simply waving as well before making his way through the door and shutting it behind him.

As for Judy, she sighed before heading through the door, hoping that what she had said to Clawhauser wasn't just an attempt to cheer him up. She wanted nothing more than to hope that they could follow through on that promise, as she didn't know what she would do without Nick.

* * *

The first few days in hiding were admittedly a little awkward, especially for Judy considering she wasn't used to actually doing these kinds of things.

Thankfully, though, Finnick and Eric were there to help her through the more difficult parts, being more experienced than her.

The days were also pretty uneventful as well, as outside of a small scare where Clawhauser mistook a police cruiser for a car painted a similar color, there was no sign of any police presence in the area.

If it was the fact that Mr. Big had this area under his protection or just simple good luck, Judy didn't know, but she decided that it was best to take it as a good thing.

Speaking of Mr. Big, Eric did manage to get in touch with the crime boss through Kevin, letting them know of their predicament. How, though, was a complete mystery, as Eric refused to say anything about it despite Judy's attempts to ask.

This wasn't the only time that they were involved with him, though, as a few days after that call, a knock came at their door.

While they were all understandably frightened, considering the amount of paranoia that had festered through the days that they were hiding, after Eric took a look through the peephole (he was standing on top of a chair to reach it), he soon realized just who was waiting for them outside.

Despite both Judy and Finnick's reservations, Eric opened the door to reveal a polar bear in a suit.

While Judy had managed to ingratiate herself into the Big family, mostly due to saving Fru Fru from a giant (for a shrew) donut, she still had yet to learn the names of some of Mr. Big's legion of polar bear bodyguards. It didn't help, either, that there was barely any noticeable difference between each of the ones that she'd seen during her visits to the compound.

Thankfully, though, she didn't really have to figure out what their name was, as Eric spoke up, taking charge of the conversation.

"Ah, Raymond! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Aren't you going to invite me in? I don't have a whole lot of time to speak," said the polar bear, his Russian accent clearly showing through as Judy realized that this was one of the polar bears she had met when her and Nick were investigating the Tundratown Limo Service.

"Oh! Yes, of course," said Eric, slightly caught off guard by what Raymond had said. "Come on in."

Eric pulled the door open wider, allowing Raymond to duck through the doorway and take a seat, his bulky frame barely able to fit into the room.

"So…Raymond…" said Finnick, looking a little nervous as he spoke. "I didn't expect to see one of Mr. Big's associates come to visit us out of nowhere. Is there something that you wish to share?"

Raymond didn't answer immediately, as he was more concerned with making himself as comfortable as possible in the seat that was way too small for him.

Thankfully, though, he did manage to find a position he was satisfied with, despite the slightly disgruntled look on his muzzle, so he finally took the time to answer the question given to him.

"As a matter of fact, there is. It concerns your friend, Nikolai."

All three of the other mammals in the room were completely caught off guard by the reason for Raymond's visit. None of them spoke immediately, as they were all quite curious as to what this information was.

Eventually, though, Judy took the opportunity to speak up.

"What is it?" she asked, unable to think of anything more substantial to say.

"We believe that we know the most likely location where the sheep has Nikolai held hostage."

Both Finnick and Judy traded looks, both of them quite stunned to hear that Nick was found. Most of their time spent in hiding was admittedly used trying to find a way to get Nick back from Bellwether's clutches, but considering the fact that they had no idea where he was in the first place, there wasn't much they could do.

"How did you know he was captured?" she asked.

"We have eyes and ears everywhere, Miss Hopps. Also, he had mentioned the fact that Nikolai was missing when we were notified of you two hiding in this building," he said, pointing towards Eric before moving his finger across the line past herself and Finnick.

Even though the fact that Mr. Big had a wider grip on the city than she thought made her a little nervous, Judy remained as calm as she could manage, as she moved on with the conversation.

"So…where is he?"

Instead of answering immediately, Raymond pulled out his phone. Everyone else was silent as the polar bear continually tapped on his phone, but just as Judy was beginning to think that he was dodging the question, he showed the phone's screen to her, revealing a picture of a very imposing looking building, which she assumed must be a prison of some sort due to all of the iron bars that she could see.

Judy could also hear both Finnick and Eric audibly wince after seeing the picture. Finnick even whistled lightly, which caught Judy's attention as she turned towards both of them.

"Do you know what this place is?" she asked, confused.

They both nodded, but before either of them could actually explain what that place was, Raymond spoke up once more, beating them to the punch.

"They call this Хребет дьявола, or the Devil's Backbone in your language. It has only been open for around two months or so, but it has rapidly garnered a reputation as one of the worst prisons in the entire country. It is located on an island hundreds of miles away from Zootopia, and it contains the worst of the worst, so Nikolai would be as good as dead."

Judy immediately blanched, one of her paws flying to her mouth as she realized what was going on. However, before she could fully register the situation they were in, Raymond quickly elaborated.

"Luckily, though, he is not there yet. Right now he is being held at the Zootopia State Correctional Facility, but he will eventually be transferred to Хребет дьявола. You must rescue him before then. Otherwise he will have no chance of ever coming out."

Raymond, whose eyes were closed as he spoke, eventually opened them to find that all of the smaller mammals around him looked terrified. They needed to find a way to break Nick out of prison soon, or they'd never see him again.

"How long do we have?" asked Finnick, his voice hollow.

"Two weeks. They are putting the finishing touches on a new wing at the Devil's Backbone. Thankfully, though, the correctional facility is not the only prison where there are inmates being transferred there, so that gives us time."

"Well, what are we waiting for? We have to get him out of there!" shouted Judy, getting worked up when she realized just what a limited time frame they had.

"I am afraid that it is not that easy," said Raymond, his Russian accent as thick as ever.

"Why not?" she asked. "I mean…can't you guys help us out?"

Raymond noticeably fell silent, making Judy feel a little worried, as she could tell that there was a good chance that he's not likely to be able to help.

However, his actual answer was a little vaguer.

"I cannot answer that question right now. I will speak with Mr. Big and we will see what we can do, but I cannot promise that we will be able to do anything to help."

While Judy was admittedly a little dismayed by the lack of an answer, this still left open the possibility that they could be getting help, so she remained silent as Raymond stood up, readjusting his suit.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I should be going."

Without even waiting for someone to reply, Raymond walked over to the doorway, ducking through it before shutting the door behind him.

As for the others, they could only listen in silence to the polar bear's disappearing footsteps before Finnick decided to speak up in an attempt to defuse the tension.

"So, uh…" he said, chuckling a bit. "Sure didn't expect to have to break into prison in my life, huh?"

Unfortunately, Judy ignored Finnick's attempt at a joke, instead looking towards Eric, who had been surprisingly silent during a majority of Raymond's visit.

"What do you think about this?" she asked, a tense expression on her face as she spoke.

Eric didn't answer immediately, as he was too busy trying to wrap his mind around the predicament that they, and especially Nick, found themselves in.

However, he did eventually come up with an answer, looking Judy in the eye as he spoke.

"I don't know about this, Judy. I've never been to prison before. I doubt that I'd be able to find my way around."

"Well, isn't there a schematic for it, like the one you found for City Hall?"

Eric opened his mouth to answer, intending to say no, but after a few seconds, he closed his mouth as a finger went to the underside of his muzzle in thought.

"You know, I think it's possible that there might be one. I vaguely remember passing by a section for the prison when I was going for them," he said, referring to the City Hall schematics.

"That's great! Do you think that you might be able to go in and grab them as well?"

Eric scoffed audibly.

"Honey, I'm a professional thief. Stealing a piece of paper is child's play," he boasted.

"I would still be careful, though," said Finnick, stepping in to the conversation. "Bellwether's bound to be watching now that she knows you're involved with us."

Eric's sudden cocky demeanor was tempered a bit thanks to Finnick's warning, but he still remained confident that he would be able to pull it off.

Despite the impromptu nature of this new job, Eric was cool and collected as he went into the bedroom that their original meeting was held in not too long ago, coming out a few minutes later in a similar getup to how he looked during their break-in.

Walking to the doorway that Raymond had left not too long ago, Eric placed his paw against the doorknob before turning back towards the others.

"You guys stay here, alright? If you need something important, talk to Clawhauser. I'm sure he'd be willing to help you guys out."

Judy couldn't help but agree with the otter, knowing Clawhauser as well as she did.

As Eric closed the door behind him, the only thing Judy and Finnick could do was sit down, staring into space as they hoped that they would be able to find a way to get Nick out of prison before he's gone forever.


	12. Chapter 12

The wait for Eric's return was excruciating for Judy and Finnick. After hearing just how little time they had left to break Nick out, both of them wanted nothing more than to head over to the prison and do so, but reluctantly they both knew that it would be borderline suicide.

So, the only real thing they could do was wait, the tension in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Luckily, though, the door soon opened a few hours after Eric left, revealing the otter himself as he carried a large roll of paper under his arm.

Finnick acknowledged his return with a small smile, choosing to react as calmly as he possibly could.

Judy, however, was on the complete opposite end compared to the fennec, as once she heard the door shut behind Eric, she immediately hopped out of her seat, heading straight towards him before he could really get too far.

"Did you get it?" she asked, a little more frantically than she really wanted to.

Eric nodded, lifting the roll of paper a bit to show her that it was in fact the plans they needed. However, Eric's mind was on a different track.

After placing the paper on a nearby table, Eric turned to face Judy and Finnick, stopping the two of them before they could reach the table and take a look at the plans.

"Listen, I think you guys need to see this."

Both Judy and Finnick traded worried looks, noticing the stressed expression that was on the otter's muzzle.

The two of them watched as Eric pulled out a phone, unlocking it with a swipe and pressing a few buttons before showing the screen to them, both of their eyes widening when they saw their own photos on the screen under a large set of letters proclaiming them to be WANTED.

Judy's head was sent spinning after seeing what she had seen. She already knew quite well that there would be a good chance that this would happen, but seeing it play out in front of her was something she still couldn't quite register fully, and frankly it terrified her.

"We're fugitives now?" she asked, her voice somewhat timid.

"Looks like it," said Eric. "That's not the only thing I saw about you guys, though."

Before either of them could ask anything pertinent, Eric turned the phone around once more, pressing a few more buttons and turning the phone back around as a ZNN news report began playing in front of them.

"The ZPD tonight are looking for a pair of thieves who attempted to steal valuable documents from City Hall."

As Peter Moosebridge spoke, the same Wanted poster that Judy saw a few moments ago flashed on to the screen, this time including a message on the bottom of the screen that read "By Order of the Mayor".

"Officer Judy Hopps and Finnegan Chamberlain, known by the alias 'Finnick', are wanted for questioning by the ZPD as ordered by Mayor Dawn Bellwether." said Fabienne Growley, her features grave as she spoke. "Any tips as to their current location can be forwarded to Precinct One, and are as always greatly appreciated."

"However, the ZPD would like to remind everyone not to approach the suspects. It is unknown at this time whether they are armed or not, but they highly suggest exercising caution."

The video ended there, and while the prospect of being sought for questioning was a nerve-wracking proposition, the atmosphere was broken a little bit by an unexpected source.

"How in the hell did they find out my real name?" shouted Finnick, catching both of the others off guard.

"So…Finnick's not your real name?" asked Judy, puzzled.

"No, it's not. I'd better not hear either of you call me by that name, though, or I promise I'm gonna bite your face off!"

"Alright, fine…I promise." said Eric, his tone sincere even though his mind was noting that fact to use should the situation present itself to have a little fun.

"I do, too," said Judy quickly, not wanting to look like she was planning something.

"Good. Not even Nicky knows about my real name, and I want it to stay that way. Got it?" he said threateningly.

Both Eric and Judy nodded.

Satisfied, Finnick turned towards the table, hopping up on to a chair and unrolling the paper to reveal the plans for the prison as promised.

"Come on, you two. Let's figure out how we're going to bust Nicky out of the joint."

"That's the problem, though! There's no way to sneak in!" said Eric.

Both Nick and Judy stared at Eric, bewildered as they registered what the otter had just said.

"Are you serious? There's gotta be a way!" said Finnick.

Eric shook his head vigorously, but neither of the others were even looking at him, as they were too busy poring over the plans to find a possible entry point.

Unfortunately, just as Eric said, the prison was pretty much impregnable outside of heading in through the front door, which was obviously not going to happen.

"Honestly, do you really think that a prison would leave that kind of design flaw in there?" said Eric.

"Hey, I'm not disagreeing with you. Still, it sucks. How in the hell are we going to get Nick out now?" asked Finnick, exasperated.

The room fell silent for a few minutes, the options for their rescue running very thin. To both Eric and Finnick's surprise, though, the answer came from a completely unexpected source.

"What if we just go through the front door?"

Finnick's head whipped around so fast he almost got whiplash as he stared incredulously at Judy, who was the one who suggested it.

"The front door?! Are you trying to get yourself arrested, girl?"

"That is kind of my point. We've already established that the only possible point of entry is the front door, right?"

Finnick quickly nodded, clearly remembering what they just spoke about.

"Well, I'm not a big fan of it either, but our only option is to break Nick out from the inside."

Both Finnick and Eric remained silent, still fully registering just what they were about to do. However, while Finnick nodded, agreeing that Judy's idea was the best shot they had, Eric spoke up.

"Listen…I'm not arguing that this is the best plan we have to go with, but I can't really help you with this."

"What? Why not?" asked Finnick, caught off guard by Eric's assertion.

Eric sighed before speaking up once more.

"Look, I can't really tell you why. I'm sorry."

Finnick looked about ready to throttle Eric until the otter spilled why he was ditching them, but Judy thankfully managed to hold him back with an outstretched paw, noticing the distraught look on Eric's muzzle.

"The best I can do is speak with Mr. Big. I can't guarantee anything, but I might be able to have them set up a riot or something to give you two some cover to break Nick out."

Neither of the others in the room were enthused with Eric's plan, but their options were once again limited, so they both simply nodded, signaling to the otter that they were okay with it.

"Good. Now, you guys had better get some sleep. You two have a long day ahead of you."

"What about you?" asked Judy, noticing that Eric was once again heading towards the door. "Can't you just speak with him on the phone like you did the last time?"

"I prefer speaking face-to-face with this kind of thing. I should be back soon, though."

The vague answer didn't exactly satisfy Judy's curiosity, but before she could even say anything more, Eric was already gone, the door shutting behind him.

Judy stared at the door in confusion for a few more moments before Finnick grabbed her paw, leading her towards where the bedroom was.

"Come on. We should listen to what he said and get some shut eye."

Judy felt nowhere near tired, her nerves frayed thanks to Nick's unknown fate, but surprisingly it didn't take long after she hopped into bed to fall asleep, Finnick taking a nearby armchair to avoid having to sleep in the same bed as her.

* * *

Surprisingly, their nap turned out to last way longer than they originally thought it would, as when the two of them woke up, it was morning once more.

As they attempted to fully come back into the world after sitting up, the door suddenly burst open, revealing Eric, who looked harried for only a few seconds before noticing what was going on with the scene in front of him.

"Hey, uh…I've got nothing against the whole interspecies thing, but I really didn't expect to see you two in the same bed."

Judy only barely managed to register what Eric had just said. However, as her vision came fully into focus, she soon realized that there was in fact a small ball of fluff next to her in bed, which soon unfolded to reveal Finnick, who looked barely awake.

"It's not what you think," said Judy quickly, blushing as the implications ran through her mind.

"I know. I was just messing with you," said Eric, chuckling.

The nervousness inside Judy's stomach soon gave way to relief knowing that Eric didn't have a problem with what was going on.

Finnick, however, was a different matter, as when he finally managed to wake up, he nearly tumbled out of the bed as he realized where he was and who he was next to.

"What the-? How in the heck did I get over here? I know for sure that I fell asleep in the armchair."

Finnick's voice trailed off, the fox trying to rack his brain to come up with an explanation for his new position in the room.

Judy, however, was more amused than anything, as she made a move to quell his fears.

"Relax, Fin, you must have just moved over here in the middle of the night. I can't imagine that armchair must have been too comfortable."

Finnick opened his mouth to say something more, but he suddenly closed it once more, a blank expression on his muzzle as he apparently must have remembered something.

"Oh yeah, I guess I must have."

He stared wistfully into the distance for a few more moments before shaking his head and returning to the scene in front of him.

"Come on, you guys. I spoke with Mr. Big, and I want to lay down my plan before you guys head over to the ZPD."

Eric's mention of the ZPD brought the good mood crashing down quickly, but neither Finnick nor Judy said anything, the two of them hopping off of the bed and heading into the main room, where to Judy's surprise, Clawhauser was as well.

"Ben? What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I, uh…I wanted to see you guys off. Eric told me about what you guys were planning to do."

Judy stared silently at Clawhauser as the rotund cheetah fretted, puzzled, until he suddenly blurted out something else he was planning to say.

"Look, I just want you to know that I'm rooting for you guys all the way. I know I can't do much from here, but I really wanted to give you guys my full support."

"Wow…thanks, Clawhauser. You're such a sweetheart," said Judy, smiling.

The cheetah couldn't help but giggle at the compliment, giving up his seat so that Judy and Finnick could join Eric at the table.

Once the three of them were all situated, Eric briefly reached towards where he left the plans for the prison, pulling them off of the floor and rolling it out on the table just like he did during the planning for City Hall.

"Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of information to go on, so the most we can do is plan your escape."

Eric glanced up towards Judy and Finnick, the former looking disappointed at the lack of information.

"I spoke with Mr. Big last night like I said I would. Thankfully, he was more than willing to spread the word to his associates inside the prison so that they could plan for the distraction to get you guys out."

Eric fell silent for a moment, sighing before continuing on.

"Unfortunately, considering how difficult it is to get messages in and out of the prison, the plan is for it to start at the next common period after you two are locked up, which doesn't give us much time. Our only hope is that you two get sent to the same block as Nick, if not the same row."

Looking down at the plans in front of him, Eric pointed towards a square in the corner of the building.

"These are where the showers are. The prison's been built to accommodate larger mammals compared to smaller mammals like you guys, so there's a good chance that you guys might be able to slip into one of the drains. I hope you two are up for a swim, because I've heard some of the pipes go into the sewers."

Judy did not look happy at the prospect of wading through other mammals' mess, but she did not want to risk losing any more valuable time before Nick got shipped off, so she decided it was best to grin and bear it.

"Alright, make sure you guys remember the plan. You've only got one shot at this. Find a good hiding spot for the van, too. We're going to try our best to get it to a good spot to use as a getaway."

Both Judy and Finnick nodded gravely before heading towards the door, looking back at Eric for one final time.

"Good luck, you two. You're gonna need it."

Finnick and Judy traded looks before heading out of the door, both of them remaining completely silent as they headed out of the apartment building and into the van, pulling out of the circle as they headed towards the center of the city.

* * *

After some more time has passed, Finnick and Judy found themselves parked inside a darkened alleyway as they stared the imposing visage of Precinct One across the square.

Leaving the keys on his seat, Finnick hopped out of the van and made his way to the front, Judy coming up next to him a few moments later.

"You ready to go?" she asked.

Finnick looked over at Judy, noticing the terrified look that she had on her face. He remained silent, however, wanting to try his hardest to exude an air of calmness despite being incredibly nervous himself.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

With a heavy sigh shared between the two of them, Judy and Finnick walked across the square and into the precinct, their paws held up high as the officers currently in the lobby stared bewildered at the scene in front of them.

"We surrender! Please don't shoot!"

Apologies for the incredibly long wait. The Fall video game rush happened, and I've been incredibly distracted playing a bunch of different games. I'm hoping to get back on a decent schedule soon, but obviously, judging from what happened last time I promised that, I can't guarantee anything.

Also, Finnick's "real name" was actually the idea of PresidentStalkeyes on . All credit goes to him, but I did make sure to ask permission just to cover my bases.


	13. Chapter 13

The officers in the lobby didn't make a move at first, most likely stunned by Judy and Finnick's brazen actions. However, it didn't take long before one of the officers, who Judy was disappointed to find was McHorn himself, pulled out his tranquilizer pistol, pointing it towards the two of them as they continued to stand where they were.

"Alright, paws behind your heads. Don't make any sudden moves," he said, his normal commanding aura diminished knowing that he was arresting a colleague.

Neither Judy nor Finnick moved a muscle as McHorn and an antelope that Judy never caught the name of cuffed the two of them.

"Sorry, Hopps. I wish I didn't have to do this," said McHorn as he began leading them to the holding cells.

"It's okay, McHorn. It's your job," said Judy, trying her best to remain calm despite feeling like she was about to hyperventilate.

This comment earned a low grunt from the rhino, the expression on his face telling Judy that he was still not happy with having to do this.

McHorn didn't say anything until the two of them were finally shoved into a holding cell, glancing back towards them as he was about to leave the room.

"Don't tell any of the others if you happen to ever get out, but…I'm going to miss you, Hopps. Honestly, I wasn't the biggest fan of you…no offense, by the way…but you were on your way to being a damn good cop."

"None taken," said Judy, subdued. While she completely expected to hear that not everyone wanted to be best friends with her, especially since the big change-over, hearing it straight from someone's mouth, especially someone she knew as long as McHorn, still stung a little.

Remaining silent, McHorn shut the door behind him, leaving Judy and Finnick alone, or at least as alone as they could tell considering Judy couldn't see into all of the cells.

"Well…this sucks," said Finnick, unable to think of anything more substantial to say now that they were alone.

"I'm sure it's not so bad," said Judy. "No one knows about what are plan is."

"What plan?" he asked.

Judy was about to run through the plan thinking that Finnick had somehow forgotten, but she thankfully managed to catch the fennec fox shushing her before she could say a word, gesturing with his head towards one of the corners of the room they were in.

Glancing up in that direction, Judy nearly kicked herself. She quickly realized that she forgot about the fact that the holding cells were monitored with security cameras, most likely to prevent anything shady from happening while suspects were being held.

"Thank you," she mouthed, making sure to point her face away from the cameras so that they couldn't tell what she was talking about.

Finnick replied with a nod, and that was the only thing that they spoke of as they waited for when they would finally be taken to prison.

* * *

Unfortunately, thanks to massive overcrowding combined with the unexpected nature of their arrests, their transfer ended up taking way longer than they thought, as a week and a half passed before they were actually ready to move there.

Thankfully, they were well fed, but it got to the point where they were both starting to go stir crazy from the amount of time they spent in there with nothing to do.

The day did eventually come, the two of them notified when Higgins came through the door, brandishing the key ring in one of his hooves. Judy quickly noted the fact that Higgins also looked pretty upset about who he was leading to jail, but she was more concerned about the severe lack of time they now had to rescue Nick.

"Your ride's here, you two. Let's get you on there."

After spending a few seconds digging the correct key out of the ring, Higgins opened the door, quickly pulling his tranq pistol out and pointing it towards them.

"Paws against the wall. Don't get any ideas."

Neither Judy nor Finnick had any intention of escaping, so they walked to the back of the cell, placing their paws on the wall as asked.

Judy could hear as Higgins walked up to them, shoving their paws behind their back as he recuffed them and led them out of the holding cell area and out of the precinct, where there was a bus with Zootopia State Correctional Facility emblazoned on the side.

Luckily for them, they couldn't see any other future inmates in the bus, so that was at least one small comfort to them.

Glancing back at Higgins, Judy was fully expecting him to say something like McHorn did considering the expression he still had on his face, but the hippo remained silent, choosing instead to lead the two of them up and into the bus.

Once Finnick and Judy sat down, the bus driver pulled out of his parking spot, and they finally began to make their way to the prison.

* * *

Neither Judy nor Finnick spoke as they were being driven to the prison, which combined with the lack of bodies in the bus, led to the entire bus journey being done in near silence.

Eventually, though, the imposing prison building came into view, and Judy was trying her best to remain calm despite being completely terrified inside. She'd always done her best to stay on the right side of the law her entire life, mostly thanks to her hope of becoming a police officer, so being led off to prison was a completely new experience for her, and she didn't know what to think.

As they were led off of the bus and through check-in, where they were given their prison jumpsuits, both of them waited with bated breath as they were led to their cell, which thankfully they were already aware of, as a guard mentioned that they would be sharing a cell.

They were led through cell block after cell block, glancing into cells as discreetly as they could so that the guards didn't get any ideas.

Just when Judy was about to panic, thinking that they'd somehow missed Nick, she caught a telltale flash of red fur deep in one of the cells. At first, Judy was thinking that it must have been some other fox, but as she attempted to get a better look into the cell, she caught the telltale emerald eyes in the darkness of the cell, and she knew that Nick was in there.

Unfortunately, she couldn't exactly call out to him considering the situation they were in, so she settled on hoping that their cell would be at least in the same cell block, if not nearby.

Both Finnick and Judy were expecting things to be close in terms of where they were placed, but Lady Luck was smiling hard on them today, as they came to a stop at the cell right across from Nick's, which was admittedly a little more reasonable now that she thought about it considering the cell block they were in was reserved for smaller mammals in an attempt to avoid random squashings.

The guards were thankfully more interested in getting them into their cell than paying attention to what Judy and Finnick were doing, so the glance of surprise between them went unnoticed by anyone outside of them.

"Open Cell D-23!" yelled one of the guards towards what appeared to be a control center a few levels above them.

Apparently there must have been someone manning the control center up there, as the cell opened up and Judy and Finnick were shoved inside. Seconds later, the door shut behind them, and they were effectively trapped.

"Have fun in there, you two!" said one of the guards, chuckling before leaving them alone to return to his rounds.

Once the coast appeared to be clear, Judy refused to waste any more time, rushing up to the door and grabbing the bars with her paws as she shoved her face as close to the bars as possible.

"Nick! Nick, are you in there?" she asked, whispering as loudly as she could so that she could be heard over the din of the other inmates.

She could see Nick suddenly appear from the dark end of his cell, heading over towards his own door only to noticeably limp as he came up to the bars.

When he came up, though, Judy was frightened to find that Nick was in a state that she didn't expect to see.

His appearance was haggard, as was expected considering his week and a half spent behind bars, but his eyes have also lost that normal bright green luster they've had, and he was also favoring his side (most likely busted ribs), which Judy assumed must have come from the beating he endured back at City Hall.

Unfortunately, the room around them was also pretty dark, so it was still pretty difficult to see everything that was going on with him. Still, she was happy that they were finally reunited, albeit in two different cells.

"Carrots? What are you doing here? I thought I told you to save yourself!" he said, his voice raspy from lack of use.

"I'm trying to save you! They're transferring you to one of the worst prisons in the country in a few days, and you're as good as dead if they get you in there."

"Wait, how did you know about that?" he asked, remembering one of the guards mentioning that fact a while back. It still made him incredibly nervous, and as of yet he found no other way to get out of this predicament.

"Raymond told us everything. This was the only way we could think of to get you out of here in time."

Nick noticeably paused, connecting the dots in his mind as he remembered seeing some members of the Big family around the yard during free time.

"Well, how are we going to get out of here?"

"I can't tell you yet! People are listening!"

Despite being slightly taken aback by Judy's panicked tone, Nick completely understood where she was coming from considering how easy it would be for the plan to come to the attention of the guards so that they would quickly shut it down.

Deciding it was probably best to drop the subject for the moment, Nick pressed his muzzle closer to the bars in the hope to be able to see further into the cell. This caused more of his visage to come into the light, and Judy winced visibly when she saw the telltale signs of a healing black eye and some remnants of a bloody nose.

"Jesus Nick, what did they do to you in here?" she asked.

"Interrogations. Bellwether wanted to know where you and Fin were, but as you can see, I didn't talk. Didn't seem like it was worth the trouble, though, now that I think about it."

Nick fell silent for a few seconds, his expression showing the distress he was feeling at the moment, but just as Judy was about to try and reassure him that they were going to get out, Nick adopted the blank mask he usually used whenever he was trying to hide how he was really feeling, quickly changing the subject before Judy could confront him on it.

"By the way, where is the little fuzz ball anyway? I'm kind of starting to miss him a bit."

"Right here," said Finnick from deeper in the cell, too exhausted from the day's events to be offended with Nick's demeaning description.

Walking to the bars next to Judy, Finnick gave Nick a half-smile, scanning his friend as he noted the injuries that he'd suffered but not mentioning anything about them.

"Fin! You look well," said Nick, unable to think of anything more substantial to say.

"You look like hell," countered Finnick, causing Nick to chuckle a bit.

"Yeah, well that's what happens when you're in jail for a week and a half. Anyway, I'm surprised to see you in here with her. I figured Carrots would be heading in here herself to save me."

"I couldn't really leave her alone in here. Jail would eat her alive, so she needs someone who's experienced spending time in here. No offense, by the way."

"None taken," said Judy, looking clearly happy to have the help.

"Wait, you were in jail? I don't recall either of us being sent there when we were working together," said Nick, slightly confused.

"That's because it happened before I even met you. Remember when I mentioned that I worked with Eric then?"

Nick nodded, his expression curious.

"Well, it turns out that being a thief isn't as much skirting the line between legal and illegal more than flying wildly into the bad half."

Finnick paused for a few moments, collecting his thoughts as he remembered what exactly happened during that incident.

"Eric was still pretty inexperienced back then, which is why we were working together. We ended up accidentally botching a job, and I stayed behind as a scapegoat so Eric could escape. I ended up spending about three months here."

"And you didn't mention it to me before…why?"

"Why would I? There's no point." said Finnick, giving Nick a weird look.

Nick simply shrugged, wincing a bit after accidentally straining his ribs. He was admittedly a little disappointed at the blunt answer he was given, but he figured that he wouldn't be able to go any further.

Now that the three of them were finally caught up, Nick decided to head back to his bed, thinking that he could use some rest to soothe his aching side, but just as he managed to slowly pick himself up and begin making his way to said rest, Judy suddenly spoke up as she stood up as well.

"Hey, do you know when the next time yard time is? I could really use some time to stretch my legs a bit."

"You've only been in there for ten minutes, Carrots," commented Nick, his back still turned as he spoke.

"Well yeah, but being cooped up in here all of the time would make anyone tense."

Judy paused, hoping that Nick wouldn't put two and two together and tie her question to the plan, but when she saw Nick finally flop on to his bed, she had a feeling that it ended up working.

However, her good mood was soon completely destroyed, as Nick's answer wasn't something that she expected to hear.

"Well, it looks like you're going to have to get used to being cooped up in here. At least you'll have some room to walk."

"Why not?" she asked, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer.

Nick didn't respond to her question immediately, as he clearly noticed Judy's tone. He picked his head up slightly off of his pillow, looking straight at Judy as he finally explained why things were happening this way.

"Our block and the next block over got banned from yard time for the next two days. Kind of sucks, but what can you do?"


	14. Chapter 14

"What do you mean we're banned from yard time?!"

Judy's words came out in a harsh whisper, barely able to control her anxiety as she registered what Nick had just said.

"Exactly what I said, Carrots. We're stuck in our cells until the day after tomorrow."

By this point, even Finnick had realized the trouble they were now in. Despite wanting more than anything to get some sleep after the long day, he managed to pick himself up off of his bed and join Judy by the cell door as Nick watched.

"Listen, what's this about? Why are you two so crazy about getting out to the yard?" asked Nick, a puzzled look on his muzzle.

Neither Judy nor Finnick wanted to answer that question, especially considering they've already established that it was too much of a risk with the guards. However, their options were limited, and Nick looked like he was already starting to get annoyed with how much he was being kept out of the loop.

Reluctantly, the two of them traded looks, Judy deciding to defer answering the question to Finnick considering he was more experienced in this kind of topic.

"Look Nick, all I can really say is that our plan involves being out in the yard, and considering we can't go into the yard until the day that you're being transferred, we've literally only got one shot at this."

This actually ended up shutting Nick up for once, as the fox looked away from the others for a few moments to think about what Finnick had just said.

"Wow, uh…I guess life can't be easy all the time, huh?" he commented, an awkward chuckle emanating from his throat.

As he turned back towards the others, he noticed Finnick nodding in agreement, but as for Judy, she had something else in mind, standing up as she spoke.

"Hey, we'd probably better get some sleep. We've got a long two days ahead of us."

"It's not even night time yet, Carrots. Chill out a little bit. We've got time to kill."

Judy was admittedly a little confused, wondering what the deal was with Nick's lackadaisical attitude considering the predicament they were in. However, as she looked outside of her cell, she found that there was indeed natural sunlight coming through some of the windows around them.

After quickly realizing that she was getting herself too worked up, she quickly closed her eyes, slowly breathing in and out so that she could calm herself down sufficiently.

Eventually, she did manage to pull herself together, and as she opened her eyes once more, she found that Nick was still in the same spot he was originally in when she first went through those exercises.

As for Finnick, though, he had already returned to his bed, having had enough of all of the problems that they've been through today. Judy was definitely worried about how he was holding up, but she had just gone through calming herself down after one episode. She really wasn't interested in having to go through another.

So, after deciding to hold off on helping the fennec fox for now, she sat down near the bars once more, leaning her head up against the wall.

Judy and Nick spent the next few hours talking. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot that they could talk about considering most of the stuff that Judy and Finnick got up to while Nick was locked away wasn't something they could freely say without implicating their cohorts, so most of their conversation was about random topics.

Eventually, night did end up falling, and both Nick and Judy were worn out, the former even more so considering he was still pretty sore.

Saying good night to each other, the two of them made their way over to their beds, Nick falling asleep relatively quickly after flopping down on the mattress.

As for Judy, falling asleep was a little more difficult. Finnick just happening to be someone who snores didn't help (Judy made a mental note to ask him about that later), but the real reason that she had difficulty sleeping was that she was incredibly worried as to how they would pull off breaking the three of them out of prison.

She hoped that the Big family members that were in the prison with them were aware of what was going on, but that was the least of their worries. If they didn't pull this off perfectly, Nick was as good as dead once he got sent off to the Devil's Backbone.

She clearly doubted that her or Finnick would be any better off if they screwed the escape up. Frankly, she had no idea what the guards would do if they were caught. Her question, however, was soon answered, as a pair of guards passed by on their evening rounds to make sure everyone was asleep.

In an attempt to hide that she wasn't in fact asleep, Judy turned away from the cell doors so that they couldn't see her open eyes. One of her ears, though, was subtly pricked up, Judy trying her best to angle it towards the guards so that she could hear what they were talking about.

At first, she didn't hear anything interesting, but the conversation soon turned to her and Finnick, and her ear nearly shot up straight as she listened intently. When she heard what they had said, though, a sick feeling grew in the pit of her stomach.

"These two are heading off to the Devil's Backbone with Wilde, right?" asked one of the guards, apparently pointing towards them with an outstretched thumb.

"Yep. Order came straight from the mayor herself. Kind of surprised, though," said the other.

"How so?"

"A few of my friends are guards there. I've heard a lot of horror stories about that place. Guards not afraid to shoot you to keep control, violent inmates…hell, everyone's violent in that place. Just imagine the amount of fatalities in that place. They'd be dead meat."

"Okay, why the hell are your friends crazy enough to go to that place? That sounds like absolute hell."

"It pays good. Plus, they're kind of crazy themselves."

There was no reply after that one comment, Judy assuming that the one guard must have been rendered speechless as they began walking.

Once the sound of footsteps were far enough away, Judy let her ear fall back to where her other one was, rolling on to her back as she attempted to sleep.

However, it was easier said than done knowing that she and Finnick were also going to the Devil's Backbone if they failed to get out of here. Sure, they'd still have Nick with them, but if it meant that they'd only have a limited amount of time to spend with him before they inevitably get killed in there, Judy would prefer to stay as far away from that place as possible.

Thankfully, though, when it seemed like she was never going to go to sleep, her eyelids soon grew heavy, and she fell asleep, lucky to have the opportunity.

* * *

With the three of them still unable to leave their cells due to the lockdown, the next day was pretty uneventful. They were all fed, which consisted of cheap food that you'd more likely see inside a frozen dinner more than made inside a cafeteria shoved through a slot inside the cell that was only used in this type of situation. Still, none of them could really complain, as they were only too happy to at least be fed in the first place.

Outside of that, the day was spent once again with talking. This time even Finnick joined in. Unfortunately for Judy, though, she attempted to get an answer out of Finnick about his snoring problems, but the fennec fox refused to answer, so she quickly dropped the subject.

The next day, however, was much more important, as it was officially their last day in the Zootopia Correctional Facility. Either they would be free to continue their fight against Bellwether, or they would never see Zootopia again, and the sheep would be free to do whatever she wanted to the city she loved.

The three of them were currently out in the yard, having just been released from their cells. In an attempt to prevent the guards from catching on to their plan, they all had an apparent look of indifference on each of their faces, Nick managing to keep his together the best thanks to his years of experience. The other two were a little less convincing, but thankfully none of the guards said anything, so they were free to move on.

Out in the yard, the three of them kept to themselves, staying out in the corner of the yard. On its own the scene would look suspicious to anyone who was paying attention, but they were also sharing the yard with the cell block next door, and it just so happened that said cell block contained five members of the Big family, who were all polar bears. Even Judy herself could tell that they were part of the family considering they were all sticking together, but she was reassured when one of the polar bears came over when they first arrived, sitting down for a few moments as he addressed Judy without looking at her.

"The shower room is on the far end of the first floor inside our cell block."

Without waiting for a reply, the polar bear stood up, dropping something on the ground in front of Judy before walking back over to the others. As Judy made a mental note of the location, she looked down on the ground in front of her and found a key. At first she was a little puzzled as to where this would go, but then she realized that it must belong to the door out of the yard, which was part of a large cage keeping the inmates inside.

And so, the minutes passed as Nick, Judy and Finnick stood off to the side, wanting to avoid getting stepped on by the much larger mammals before they could get ready to start.

Out of the corner of her eye, Judy noticed one of the polar bears stand up. Walking over to one of the other inmates, who happened to be a tiger, the polar bear reared back and punched him in the muzzle, sending the tiger reeling.

This set off the mammals nearby, who were most likely either his friends or part of a gang with the victim. Stepping forwards, they started angrily shouting at the polar bear, only for the rest of them to join the one who started the fight.

After some time spent trading insults, one of the other mammals threw a punch, and the fight was on, spreading like wildfire through the yard.

Judy could see some of the guards step in and attempt to break up the fighting, but by the time they even got there, it became wildly out of control, almost becoming a full-blown riot like how the plan was supposed to go.

Once it looked like the guards have sufficiently lost control of the situation, both Judy and Finnick stood up, the latter gesturing for Nick to join them.

"Come on Nick, let's go. Stay low."

"Where are we going?" he asked. "I'd like to know what I'm getting myself in to."

Judy was admittedly a little worried that Nick was going to stand his ground until he was informed of the plan, but thankfully he started to move after he finished speaking, staying low as was asked while Finnick took the opportunity to share what they were doing.

"We're heading for the shower room in the cell block next door," said Finnick, weaving through much larger feet as he spoke. "We're getting out of here through the drains."

Luckily, Nick remained moving, but Judy could see the disgusted look that the fox had on his muzzle, no doubt remembering the last time he had to crawl through drain pipes.

"Seriously? You do know that I didn't have a fun time last time we did this, right Carrots?"

"Yeah, I remember, but seriously Nick, this is our only way out."

"Okay, I understand. We get out through there or we're screwed."

By the time the three of them finished their conversation, they'd finally reached the door out of the yard. Reaching into her pocket, Judy fished out the key before sticking it in the lock, hearing a satisfying click as it opened.

However, just as they actually escaped the cage, a small group of three guards greeted them at the entrance to their cell block, having just been called over to help contain the riot.

Both groups froze, no doubt surprised to have run into each other. It didn't take long, though, before the guards went into action.

"Don't move!"

"Run!"

Judy took the lead after giving out her command, running in the opposite direction towards the cell block where they were supposed to go to, the guards giving chase as Finnick and Nick were close behind.

Initially, things were going well as they entered the cell block, as they were managing to keep their distance from the pursuing guards, and they were also beginning to tire out thanks to the speed they were going.

However, the three of them were also tiring out, and while it didn't seem like a bad thing at first considering how the guards were doing, they were soon beginning to catch up.

In an eerily similar outcome to what happened at City Hall, Judy and Finnick managed to dodge the grasp of the guards, the former landing a powerful kick to take her down while the latter punched his, showing quite a bit of power for someone of his size.

Nick, however, wasn't as lucky, as his injuries combined with his lack of physical fitness once again caught up with him.

This time, though, Judy wasn't about to run away. Once she caught sight of Nick struggling with the guard, she rushed back towards him, hopping off of the ground and off of a cell door before landing a mean drop kick, knocking the guard away from Nick.

Taking the opportunity, Nick kicked the stunned guard in the face as hard as he could before rushing off, Judy and Finnick keeping close by.

Eventually, the three of them reached the shower room, and they quickly went to one of the shower drains, only to find that it was covered, and it was also larger than the three of them combined.

Coming to a stop next to the drain, Judy listened intently, hearing the screaming voices of guards over the sirens signaling a riot in progress.

"We don't have much time. We're going to need to work together to get this thing off."

"Lovely. I can't wait to be swimming through discarded bear fur," commented Nick, earning an eye roll from Judy.

Taking their positions on each side of the cover, the three of them looped their fingers through some of the holes before lifting it at the same time.

At first, it seemed like it wasn't going to budge, but eventually it came loose, and just as a new set of guards entered the shower room, the three of them had already jumped in, the cover replaced as it was never removed in the first place.


	15. Chapter 15

As the sirens and yells of guards raged above them, Nick, Judy and Finnick were busy crawling through the pipes networking below the prison.

Thankfully, they were all big enough so that they would be able to get through with only some minor bending, but none of them were sure as to how soundproof they were to the mammals above ground, so the three of them tried to keep their voices down as much as possible.

Frankly, they were also lucky that they didn't have to crawl on their paws and knees as well, considering in Nick and Finnick's case, they had the collars to deal with. In an attempt to dissuade predators from simply dipping their collars in water and watching them short out, the makers put in a feature where the collar would trigger if it got wet.

Of course, it led to a fair share of accidental shockings whenever it rained outside, but the higher-ups didn't care anyway, so that was never fixed.

The three of them continued to make their way through the labyrinth of pipes, the noise above them becoming less and less prevalent, making them assume that they must be going deeper under the ground.

Once they felt that they were far enough down below that no one would be able to hear them, Nick couldn't resist making a comment from his position at the back of the line of escapees.

"You know, I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I just stepped in some polar bear hair a few turns back. I kind of had a feeling that this would happen."

"Oh, shush," said Judy, partially glad that prison hadn't changed Nick for the worse, and yet partially annoyed that Nick was running his mouth despite them still not being out of the building as of yet.

"Seriously, Carrots, I think I'm going to be picking out strands for the next hour once we get out of here. It's not going to be fun, let me tell you."

"I agree. Now will you please just be quiet for a few minutes until we get out of here?" she said, clearly wanting to drop the subject as quickly as possible.

While Nick was admittedly a little put off by Judy's quick answer, he decided it wasn't really worth it to argue. After taking a few moments to collect his thoughts while he continued wading through the water, he looked over towards the others, who were keeping a decent pace going while wandering through the pipes.

"Thanks for busting me out of there, you guys."

"We're not free yet, Nick," said Finnick.

Nick gave the back of Finnick's head in front of him a puzzled look, unsure of what to think about what he'd said.

"You're welcome, by the way. We couldn't let you get sent off to the Devil's Backbone if we had anything to say about it."

Nick couldn't help but smile a bit, knowing how much both Finnick and Judy cared about him, even though they showed it in different ways.

"So what now?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure we're not going to be able to leave the city at this point."

"Well, I guess we might as well just head back to Eric's place, right? I doubt they know where that is, and even then, the police would have some difficulty getting to us considering Mr. Big's on our side." said Judy, looking back towards the others as she made another turn.

Both Nick and Finnick traded looks, neither one enthused about the possibility of heading back to the otter's place considering how dangerous it was going to be on the streets now. However, Nick had no other ideas, and judging from Finnick's expression, he didn't either.

"Alright, I think that's probably our best option," said Nick, shrugging as he ducked under a low hanging curve in the pipe.

"Yeah, we'd just need to get back to the van, and I think we'll be safe."

"You sure they didn't impound the thing by now, Fin? I don't know how long it's been since you guys were arrested, but you'd think they would have found it unoccupied by now," said Nick, giving the small fox in front of him a pointed look.

"They'd better not have! I'll bite all of their faces off if they lay even one paw on my baby."

Nick couldn't resist chuckling watching Finnick pine over his lost vehicle, his decision causing a line of pain to shoot through his ribs thanks to all of the movement he was making.

Hissing, Nick clutched at his side, trying his best to massage the pain away as they continued walking.

"You alright, Nick?" asked Judy, having caught the noise Nick made thanks to her good hearing.

"M'fine," said Nick through gritted teeth. "Just tweaked my ribs a bit."

"Just be careful, alright?"

"Sure."

Despite the worried look that Judy had on, the three of them continued on their way through the pipes.

Eventually, though, when it got to the point where they were all beginning to think that they were going around in circles, Nick (being the tallest of the group) spotted the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

"Over there!" he said, pointing towards the light as his arm poked between Finnick's ears, earning him a grumble of protest from the fennec fox.

Once Judy looked over and saw the daylight, she continued to lead the way while Nick and Finnick followed behind. However, when they finally got to the end of the pipe, they were quickly forced to stop when Judy realized what they were up against.

"No way! Not this again," she said, groaning.

"What? What is it?" asked Nick, unable to see much from behind the others.

"They seriously need to stop building landmarks on top of cliffs."

"Seriously?" said Nick, his eyes widening once he got the gist of what Judy was talking about. "Are we above water again?"

"Unfortunately. Well, I guess it's now or never."

Both Nick and Finnick were caught off guard, as Judy immediately jumped out of the pipe without any real warning. At first, the two of them were worried that something had went wrong, but when they heard a splash coming from down below, they knew that she was alright.

As Nick prepared to make the jump, his expression showing that he clearly didn't want to have to do so, Finnick looked behind him, giving Nick a bewildered look.

"I'll tell you about it later, Fin. Let's just get out of here while we still can."

Shrugging, Finnick prepared to make the jump himself. However, he didn't do so immediately, and Nick knew that he was hesitating too long, so after mentally preparing himself for the inevitable rant later, Nick reached out with his foot, lightly pushing Finnick and sending the tiny fox over the edge.

Thankfully, even though it felt he should considering the circumstances, Finnick had managed to keep his mouth shut the entire journey down despite being freaked out by the sudden rush of falling.

Once Nick heard the splash down below, he poked his head out from the end of the pipe, grabbing the ends with his paws as he prepared to make his own jump, breathing in and out to psyche himself up.

"Well, here goes nothing."

Pushing with his paws, Nick launched himself out of the pipe, barreling end over end as he fell what felt like hundreds of feet.

Luckily though, it turned out to be way less than Nick thought considering his experience with Cliffside, as this drop was nowhere near as bad. While it did still hurt quite a bit for him to hit the water, especially with him landing on the side with his bad ribs.

Blinking away the tears that threatened to come through thanks to the pain, Nick forced himself to swim up towards the light, eventually breaking the surface and making it to the shore where the others were waiting.

As Nick collapsed on the ground, barely managing to prevent himself from curling into a fetal position, Finnick looked over and noticed the anguished look on his friend's muzzle, his own expression becoming concerned.

"You alright there, bro? You don't look too good."

Nick didn't answer immediately, as he was still in the middle of pulling himself together. Once he managed to pick himself up and join them, though, he said the only real thing he could think of.

"Ugh, never try to do a high dive when you've got broken ribs," he said, sniffing as he collected himself.

Finnick visibly winced, only able to imagine the feeling of what Nick was going through.

"At least you're alright. You think you'll be able to manage walking fine?"

"Oh yeah, I'll be good," said Nick, even though his expression is telling the exact opposite of what he'd said.

Even Finnick noticed Nick's unusually poor attempt to hide the pain he was going through, but with the situation they were in, they really had no time to argue, so after huffing and rolling his eyes, he turned towards Judy, who was spending the intervening time figuring out what to do next.

"So, did you find us something to get us out of here, bunny cop?"

Judy paused, looking down towards the ground for a few moments before turning to face Finnick, thankfully ignoring the technically inaccurate nickname for her.

"I don't know, Fin. I don't think we're going to be able to get far walking, especially with Nick's condition," she said, glancing at Nick who was still massaging his ribs. "And I don't see any other way for us to get out of here without getting caught."

Judy's answer didn't exactly inspire much confidence in Finnick, but as he took a look around the area himself, his eyes soon landed on what turned out to be a parking lot, which thankfully just happened to be near where they landed.

Realizing the stroke of luck that they've just received, Finnick immediately stood up despite Judy's protests and walked over to one of the cars inside the lot. Picking up a nearby stone, Finnick tossed it up a few times, letting it fall into his paw as he briefly debated risking doing what he was planning on doing.

Judy was about ready to tell Finnick to come back so that he wasn't seen, but without any real warning Finnick threw the stone, smashing through the window as he quickly hopped up and unlocked the door.

Predictably, the car alarm went off, but thankfully as Judy led Nick to the car itself, the alarm soon was silenced, catching the young doe off guard.

"Finnick, what are you doing?!" she asked, freaking out that they were going to get caught thanks to the alarm going off.

Finnick didn't answer immediately, as he was too busy inside the car. Eventually, though, the door opened to reveal the fennec fox, a mess of wires under the steering wheel showing as he sat on the seat trying his best not to sit on the broken glass.

"Getting us out of here. Come on, get in."

Judy was unsure of whether to go through with the plan or not, but after some gentle prodding from Nick, she sighed before heading over to the other side, helping Nick into the passenger seat before jumping in herself and closing the door.

Finnick quickly pulled the car out of the parking spot, coming to a stop just before the exit of the lot as he looked up towards the prison.

"Good. Looks like they're still distracted by the riot."

"Finnick, I'm not sure I like this."

Judy was clearly uncomfortable with the prospect of having to steal a car to get out of there, but Finnick wasn't in the mood to try and reason with her, so he kept his explanation short and simple.

"Listen, I'm not happy with having to do this, either. I don't like having to hotwire a car unless I really need to, but they spotted us some time to get out of here by keeping the guards busy up there, so I'm trying to take advantage of that. Sounds good?"

"I guess."

Judy still wasn't happy, but she knew that this was the best chance they've got to escape, so she reluctantly kept her mouth shut as Finnick pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the road towards Savannah Central, thankfully without any police presence to impede their progress.

* * *

As the three of them drove through the square, heading for the borders of Happytown, the air around them was tense, as they were driving right by the ZPD.

Normally, this would be an extremely dumb move for someone who was trying to avoid being rearrested, but in their case they were trying to recover Finnick's van, and after spending some time driving and avoiding awkward stares, they actually managed to find it untouched.

Unfortunately, despite Finnick desperately wanting to get to it so that they could take it back to Happytown with them, walking around the city in broad daylight in prison jumpsuits would be just asking for trouble. So, after a fair share of convincing from the others, Finnick reluctantly passed the opportunity to recover it up, choosing instead to wait for a more opportune time.

Eventually, the three of them reached the border of Happytown without any real incidents, but it still remained tense up until they passed into Mr. Big's territory. Only then did they let out their breaths, the tension relieved knowing that they were safe for now.

Once they pulled up to the apartment building, Judy took the liberty of helping Nick out of the car despite the fox's protests that he was alright, while Finnick worked on disconnecting the wires, hoping that he could use this car again when he went out to get the van.

Despite some small shocks from the electrical equipment (thankfully not triggering his collar), the wires were eventually all separated and Finnick, satisfied with the job he did, joined the other two just as they went through the doorway into the building.

"You know, you never told me that you knew how to hotwire a car, Fin," said Nick, smiling despite still being quite sore from the car ride over.

"There's a lot I haven't told you yet, Nick. Don't ask about it, though."

"Why not?"

"Because I really don't want to talk about it."

Despite the vague answer he was given, Nick was okay with it, considering even he still had some secrets about his past life he hadn't told anyone, so it was only fair.

Making a mental note to badger him about it once this whole thing blew over, Nick allowed himself to be led up the stairs as they made their way up to Eric's floor.

Once they actually made it to the floor and knocked on Eric's door, though, they were met by something else that they didn't quite expect to happen today.

"Judy?"


	16. Chapter 16

"Wolford? What are you doing here? How did you even find out where we were hiding?"

"Please…just call me Elliot. Being referred to by my last name reminds me too much of what could have been if it wasn't for how things are now."

Judy was too stunned by Wolford's presence inside Eric's apartment to really register the fact that he wanted to be referred to differently, forcing Nick to take the initiative.

"Okay…Elliot…why don't you explain to us what you're doing here before I sic Finnick on you. He may be small, but he can be pretty vicious when he wants to be."

Wolford glanced down at Finnick for a moment, noticing the hard glare that the diminutive fox was giving him before quickly explaining himself, nervously scratching at his neck near where his collar was situated.

"My family and I have been living a few blocks outside of this area of town ever since I got fired from the precinct and we got thrown in here. We got by as best as we could, but obviously it was pretty difficult for us."

"Get on with it," said Finnick, fuming.

"Right. While I was outside our house, I saw this weird van pass by our street multiple times a couple of days in a row, heading into this area of town."

Wolford could see a flash of anger cross Finnick's muzzle, as the fennec no doubt had managed to figure out what kind of van he was talking about, but the wolf did his best to ignore the glare as he continued on.

"Now, I wasn't too worried at first, but as it continued to go back and forth down my street, I knew something was going on, so…I followed it and ended up here. Your friend Mr. Shellton didn't seem too thrilled to see me around, but I somehow managed to convince him that I wasn't going to rat him out."

Wolford paused as he considered what he was going to say next.

"Still, I certainly didn't expect to see you here, Judy. I've heard about what you've been up to on the news, but I didn't think I'd ever find you here!"

Judy opened her mouth to say something, but before she could do so, Finnick jumped in, hopping up on Wolford's chest as he had the wolf's shirt in the paw that wasn't being used to keep him off of the ground.

"Listen, you might have convinced Eric, but I'm not going to be as easy as you think. Give me one good reason to not kick you out on your furry behind, copper!"

Finnick's threatening tone, combined with the fact that he was still in his prison jumpsuit, made even the normally calm and collected Wolford's heart skip a beat. It even got to the point where the light on his collar changed to the warning color, but luckily for him, he managed to keep it together long enough.

"Hey, I may have been a cop before, but I'm just as upset about what this city's become as you guys!"

"Really," said Nick, unimpressed as he regarded the scene in front of him. "And what are you going to do about it?"

"I want to help you guys out."

"You don't even know what we're doing!"

"Yeah, I do. Eric filled me in while you guys were gone. I even managed to convince a couple of our predator colleagues to help us out," he said, looking at Judy as he spoke.

"Wait, really?" asked Judy, inserting herself into the scene as she looked at Wolford, surprise etched on to her face.

"Yeah! Grizzoli, Delgato, and Snarlof said they want to come along."

"No one else?"

Wolford shook his head, or at least he did as best as he could considering his continued proximity to Finnick's muzzle.

"I tried, Judy. Fangmeyer's husband said no, and I couldn't get a hold of anyone else."

Judy was noticeably disappointed at this news, but the disappointment was tempered somewhat thanks to the fact that they now had four more members of their team. The only problem was convincing Nick and Finnick to play along.

Sighing, she quickly turned towards Nick, whose attention was still on Finnick hanging on to Wolford, looking threatening as the wolf tried not to panic.

"Nick…I think we should trust him."

Nick quickly turned towards Judy, a bewildered expression on his muzzle as he registered what she'd just said.

"Seriously, Carrots? I know you've never been in jail before, but I didn't think two days would have messed you up that much!"

"I am serious, Nick! Sure, Elliot and I didn't talk all that much back when we were still working at the precinct, but I know that he's always put the interests of everyone who lives in this city ahead of his own. That's what you have to do when you become an officer in the first place, and I believe that he still follows that code even though he's not a cop anymore."

Judy wasn't one who could hide her emotions as well as Nick could, so the fox could clearly see how worked up she was getting. Once she managed to calm herself down, though, the look of determination in her eye did not disappear, and Nick knew that she wasn't going to back down without a fight.

"Let him go, Fin."

"What? Are you serious?" asked Finnick, his threatening look replaced by a look of confusion as he looked at Nick while still attached to Wolford's shirt.

"Of course I am. I trust Carrots's judgement. Besides, we are kind of making a scene out here."

Judy looked around the hallway they were in noticing that, while it was a bit of an exaggeration to call it making a scene, she could see Clawhauser poking his head out from the door to see what was going on.

When he saw Wolford, though, his expression noticeably brightened, and despite his reservations about inserting himself into the argument, he couldn't resist getting the chance to see the wolf again.

"Elliot! It's great to see you," he said, shoving his bulk in front of Wolford once Finnick finally released him.

"Ben? You live here?" asked Wolford, smoothing out his shirt with a paw as he fixed Clawhauser with a bewildered look.

"Yeah…this was the best I could get on a receptionist's salary. Still, Eric was more than happy to let me stay on his floor, so I really should thank him for that more often."

"That's good. What's with the glasses, by the way?"

Clawhauser opened his mouth to answer, but before he could do so, he was interrupted when Finnick suddenly spoke up, irritated.

"He's nearsighted, alright? Can we move on?"

The outburst earned Finnick a bewildered look from both Wolford and Judy, but neither of them said anything as they went to head for the door to Eric's apartment.

"So…are the others in here right now?" asked Judy as Wolford opened the door.

"Unfortunately not."

Judy's attention was completely on Wolford as she asked that question, so hearing the answer not coming from him came as a bit of a surprise to her.

Whipping her head around, she found Eric himself standing in the doorway, a smile on his muzzle as he regarded the three recent prison escapees.

"Why not?"

"Well…" said Eric, his expression faltering for a few moments as he scratched the back of his neck. "I know we were confident and all about your ability to break Nick out of jail, but as the days went on, we were beginning to get worried that you guys weren't going to get him out in time. So, no offense, but I was starting to come up with plans based on having me and all of the ZPD guys."

"We're here now. So, why aren't we just asking them to come over now then?" asked Nick.

"That's because we have to be careful. The city loaded up on more security cameras while you guys were locked up, so much so that this city's almost turning into a police state!"

This new information silenced all three of them as they traded looks between each other.

"We definitely need to stop her before that happens," said Nick, looking uncharacteristically worried.

"Yeah, if we don't we're never going to be able to once our every movement's being watched."

"Speaking of being watched, we really should be getting inside."

As soon as Eric spoke up, he quickly shooed the group into his apartment, shutting the door as subtly as possible while he went to work latching all of the deadbolts to make sure no one was going to bust in on them.

Once everyone managed to take a seat, Judy decided to speak up first, finally taking the chance to ask the question that's been bugging her for the past few minutes.

"So, if they're not going to be here today, then when are they going to come? We don't really have a lot of time to waste here."

"Don't worry, Judy," said Wolford. "The meeting's tomorrow afternoon, and they're all going to be coming here separately and at different times so no one gets suspicious."

Judy was still a little unsure about how well this was going to go considering how badly everything up to now has already gone, but she remained silent, allowing everyone to finally wind down after what's been a trying week.

The silence was soon broken, however, thanks to an involuntary grunt from Nick, the fox having twisted his torso the wrong way and tweaked his ribs again.

This caught the attention of Eric, and once he managed to get a look at Nick, he let out a low whistle as he took in the sight of the beaten fox.

"Damn, what did they do to you in there?"

"Quite a lot. The ribs were from the city hall job, though, so it wasn't entirely prison brutality."

"We'd better get you to the clinic and get you patched up. Hey Fin! How about you help me get Nicky here out to the doctor's?"

Surprisingly, Finnick was a little wary about what Eric was suggesting, at least compared to his normal gung-ho attitude with life.

Glancing out of the nearby window, Finnick realized that the sun was actually setting by this point, and he nearly started when he remembered the one thing that was still missing.

"Yeah, I'll help you out. Can we do one other thing while we're out, though?"

"What's that?" asked Eric, suspicious as he eyed Finnick.

"While they're busy patching Nick up, I really need to get my van back from the main square. We passed by it on the way here, but it wasn't safe for us to be seen by everyone."

"How did you even get here, then?" asked Eric, puzzled.

"We stole a car."

"Ah, I see."

Judy was admittedly a little surprised to see how lackadaisical Eric was about Finnick's willingness to admit to what they had to resort to for getting away from the prison. Then again, there was a good chance that Eric himself may have engaged in some grand theft auto at some point in his career, too, so Judy could see that there was a good reason why he acted that way.

As for Eric himself, he didn't look too thrilled with the idea of risking his and Finnick's necks going out to get the van, not to mention Nick's, but after noticing how dark it was getting and how desperate Finnick was getting, he sighed heavily.

"Alright…I'll help you out. Just this once, alright? After that, we really need to be on our toes."

"Yeah, sure," said Finnick, looking like he was barely paying attention to him.

Eric, however, chose not to call him out on it even though his senses were screaming at him to do so.

After shaking his head, Eric walked over to where Nick was sitting, standing in front of the chair as he beckoned the fox with both of his outstretched paws.

"Come on, big guy. We're going to get you fixed up."

Nick clearly did not look thrilled about having to get back up so soon after he found a comfortable position to rest on, but with an audible grunt, he managed to pull himself up, grasping Eric's paws as he pulled himself out of the chair.

Finnick soon got out of his chair a few seconds after Eric and Nick walked by him, keeping close just in case something happened.

Once they managed to make it to the door, though, Eric got to work unlatching the locks once more, mentally kicking himself for doing so many.

Eventually, the last lock was released, and the door was opened to allow them to exit. However, before they actually went to go through said door, Eric stopped in his tracks for a few moments, turning back towards Wolford and Judy as he looked at the former.

"I know your family's probably going to be a bit worried, Elliot, but I'd suggest you wait until it gets darker before heading home. We don't want to risk you getting seen being outside."

Judy could clearly see the look of worry on Wolford's muzzle as he considered what Eric had said, but after a few moments, his expression changed to one of understanding as he nodded in the otter's direction.

Satisfied, Eric let Finnick through the door before leading Nick out himself, the door shutting soon after and leaving Judy and Wolford alone with no idea what to do next.

The only thing that Judy could think of to do was relax in her comfortable chair, so after almost sinking into the leather, she decided to spend some time staring out the window, watching as the sun continued to set on another day.

The silence was soon broken, however, when Wolford awkwardly cleared his throat.

"Something up, Elliot?" asked Judy, still getting used to referring to Wolford by his first name.

"Don't you want to get out of that stuffy prison jumpsuit and into something more comfortable?"

Judy jumped, having been so lost in her thoughts she failed to remember that she was still wearing said jumpsuit.

Unfortunately, with the last clothes she wore still technically the prison's property, her choice of wardrobe was much more limited than before.

Sighing, she walked into the bedroom, pulling out the black shirt and pants she wore during the city hall job and swapped them for the prison jumpsuit, tossing the latter pair of clothes into the corner before returning to the main room where Wolford was waiting, a smirk tugging at the corner of his muzzle as he looked at Judy's getup.

"Wow, looks like someone's dressed to steal something."

"You…shut it. It's all I had available," said Judy, unable to think of anything more substantial to say.

"What? I can't help it that you look like one of those bank robbers from one of those old cop movies I used to watch when I was a kid."

"My god, you're starting to sound like Nick…and one's enough!"

Wolford's smile remained on his muzzle as he fell silent, leaving the two of them to anxiously await as everyone else was out risking their butts to get Nick fixed up.


	17. Chapter 17

The next few hours inside Eric's apartment were pretty tense. Judy couldn't leave the building considering the very high likelihood of being caught on camera after their escape from prison, so she was desperately trying to find ways to keep her mind off of what was happening out in the city.

As for Wolford, even though night had already fallen about an hour after Eric and Finnick took Nick away to get patched up, he really didn't want to leave Judy by herself, especially after what she's been through over the past few days.

So, after briefly debating his options and figuring out what to say to his wife (she surprisingly still doesn't know what Elliot's been planning, even though the excuses as to why he's been leaving have been getting worse), he remained seated as Judy took to looking around the room, seeing if there was anything interesting to pass the time.

Thankfully for both of their sanity, Judy opened a closet and found an actual television set.

"Wow, look at this!" she whispered.

"Something up, Judy?" asked Wolford.

Judy quickly stepped aside so that he could see the set, which was one of those old-style box TVs which were bulky but easy to carry around.

"I haven't seen one of these in years. I wonder if it still works?"

Wolford briefly scanned the room and noticed what looked like a black extension cord poking a few feet out of one of the walls, ending in a connector that he vaguely remembered plugging in when setting up the television back at his apartment.

"Try that over there. Maybe there's a way for us to at least watch the news if we can get this connected."

Nodding, Judy turned back towards the closet, moving to pick the set up so that she could carry it over to where the cord was.

Unfortunately, while it was smaller than a normal TV, it was still relatively big for someone of Judy's size, so it was a bit of a difficult trip getting it over. Still, even though Wolford did offer some help, Judy managed to get it over by herself, regretting her decision not to grab her other clothes when the black color exacerbated the warmth she was feeling from the barely air-conditioned room.

Sighing, Judy pulled the cord, briefly thinking about whether the cable was stolen or not before deciding not to worry about it. However, in a stroke of bad luck, the cord just happened to be stuck under the table she placed the TV set on top of.

This forced Wolford to step in when he noticed how much Judy was struggling with freeing the cord from its trap.

"Here, let me handle it," he said, lightly pushing Judy out of the way before lifting up one end of the table just enough so that he could free the cord without sending the TV crashing off of the table.

Placing the table back on to the ground, Wolford screwed the cable into the right place on the set, plugging the power in using a nearby socket before hitting the power button and hoping for the best.

Luckily, despite some early static, the picture soon came in, and the first thing that they saw just happened to be the telltale visages of Peter Moosebridge and Fabienne Growley, the erstwhile anchors of the ZNN Evening News.

"Oh, awesome! That's just what we were looking for!" said Judy, smiling.

Wolford didn't say anything in reply, only gesturing for Judy to take a seat so that they could see the picture.

The first few stories weren't all that important to either of them, but when a picture of the prison shows up on the screen, the two of them listen with rapt attention.

"As a follow-up to our news story about the riot that happened at the Zootopia State Correctional Facility, the mayor's office has released a statement praising the hard-working mammals for keeping everything under control," said Moosebridge, as stone faced as ever. "The statement also commends the guards for preventing all of the more dangerous inmates from escaping the prison in confusion."

"However, the prison itself has released a statement of its own notifying us that there are three non-violent inmates currently on the run."

Judy was more than prepared to see their faces on the screen once more, but to her surprise, Fabienne Growley's face still remained on the screen as she continued speaking.

"Unfortunately, despite ZNN's best efforts to identify the fugitives, the facility has refused to release their names, citing an order from the mayor's office. The ZPD would also like to remind everyone that while these fugitives are not dangerous, they highly suggest not trying to approach them."

As Judy watched the ZPD tip line number pop up on the bottom of the screen, she had mixed feelings about what she'd just heard. While it was nice that their faces weren't being plastered everywhere (which would make it way more difficult to get around town and get anything done), she couldn't help but wonder just what Bellwether was trying to accomplish by hiding their escape from the citizens.

It was entirely possible that she was just trying to lure the three of them into a false sense of security, but Judy was definitely smarter than that. At least she believed that she was.

Sighing, Judy was about ready to ask Wolford something when the door suddenly opened.

Panicking, Judy was about ready to defend herself, thinking that they were found out and someone was coming to take her back to the prison. However, after a few seconds, she soon realized that it was only Nick, Finnick, and Eric.

After quickly glancing over to Wolford and noticing him relax a bit in his chair, she quickly turned her head back to where the three of them were and noticed just how much healthier Nick was looking compared to when he left.

"You're looking better," commented Judy as she eyed Nick up.

"Why thank you," said Nick, adopting a suave smile. "I do try my best to keep myself clean every once in a while."

Judy couldn't help but shake her head, mystified at how Nick managed to keep his spirits up even with all of the hell he went through over the last few weeks. Then again, she also remembered his motto, so there was a good chance that he was just hiding how he was really coping very well.

"So, I'm guessing you must be all fixed up, huh?" she asked, choosing to leave that thought in the back of her mind.

"Not exactly," said Finnick.

"Why not?"

"Well, the clinic we went to was staffed by a badger named Honey," said Eric. "We kind of got to know each other over the years considering how many times Fin and I were there. Anyway, she's a great doctor, but when you're as limited with the amount of supplies as she was…"

"What he's saying is she did the best she could with me," said Nick, interrupting Eric before he started to ramble. "She managed to clean up all of my cuts and bruises, but all I got for the ribs were these painkillers."

Nick quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle, giving it a small shake so that Judy could see the small white pills inside.

As for Judy herself, she wasn't too thrilled to know that Nick wasn't one hundred percent better, but she understood that unless they wanted to risk going out into the main part of the city to convince a doctor from the hospital to help him, there wasn't a whole lot they could do.

Once her worry for Nick's condition dissipated to the point where she was sure that he wasn't going to fall apart at the next step he took, Judy turned her attention to the others and noticed that Finnick was looking much happier than he has been since they were arrested.

"So, I'm guessing from that look you've got on that you must have gotten the van back."

"Yup," said Finnick, nodding.

"He sure didn't make it easy for us, though," commented Eric.

"How so?"

"We nearly got caught because he wouldn't leave the stupid thing alone even though there were cops patrolling the area!"

"Hey, I wasn't going to leave my baby behind a second time!" countered Finnick as he rounded on Eric.

Their conversation soon devolved into the two of them bringing up increasingly outlandish reasoning behind why they still went for it, eventually forcing Wolford to step in to break the two of them up before things got violent.

"Alright, you two! We're not going to be able to take down Bellwether with you guys at each other's throats."

Eric, being the more rational one, managed to calm himself down relatively quickly, walking towards one of the seats in the room and sitting down so that he could get some space.

As for Finnick, he was a bit of a different story. In a desperate attempt to get to Eric so that he could bite his face off, Finnick had resorted to climbing on to Wolford's arm, but somehow the wolf had managed to hold the feisty fennec off, preventing him from getting any further than his upper arm.

Eventually, though, he did release his vice-like grip on Elliot's arm, but contrary to what Eric did, Finnick went all the way into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him as the others (outside of Eric) looked on in bewilderment.

"Well, that could have gone better," commented Nick, earning him a punch on the arm from Judy.

"Not the time, Nick."

However, as she looked towards Nick to chastise him, she noticed that he wasn't wearing his prison jumpsuit. In fact, he had on a pair of slacks almost like the ones he usually wore. Instead of his green Hawaiian shirt, though, he had on a white unbuttoned collared shirt with a muscle shirt underneath, some of the bandages from his healing ribs poking out from where the shirt wasn't covering his chest.

Judy couldn't help but notice how the change in his getup really brought out the light on his collar, but she decided it was best not to bring it up. Instead, she stepped forwards, looking up and down at Nick as she spoke.

"When did you manage to get changed?" she asked.

"Well Carrots, when you know someone like Honey as well as Fin and Eric do, you can get some nice favors out of her, like holding a change of clothes, for instance."

"At least it's better than that tacky Hawaiian shirt you wore all the time."

"Hey, I will have you know that I have more than just that shirt in my wardrobe, Fluff. I do have at least some taste in fashion, even if this isn't something I would normally wear," he said, gesturing towards the clothes he was wearing.

"Sure, whatever you say."

Judy had a feeling that Nick wasn't being completely truthful with his choice in wardrobe, considering every time she saw him, he had on the same look. However, she remained silent, allowing Nick to have his way for once.

The silence was soon broken, though, when Wolford started making his way to the door, turning to face the three of them just before he reached it.

"Hey, I should really be going. My wife's going to kill me if I don't get home soon."

"Okay, that sounds good," said Eric from his position on the chair. "You do remember what we've planned for the meeting tomorrow, right?"

Wolford nodded, quickly opening the door and waving goodbye before shutting it and leaving the three of them alone with only the sound of the final parts of the newscast to cut through the silence.

Once the awkwardness of Wolford's sudden exit made its way through the room, Nick took a look around the room for a moment, taking another chance to get used to everything around him after spending so much time in prison.

His eyes eventually landed back on Judy, though, and when he saw what she was wearing, he couldn't help but adopt his normal sly smile as he prepared to make a snide comment.

Unfortunately for him, Judy had already figured out what he was trying to do, and quickly held up a finger, glaring at Nick from around the outstretched digit.

"I know what you're planning on saying, Nick, and if you don't want your ribs broken again I think you should reconsider it."

"Well, that's a little harsh, especially coming from you."

Judy's expression softened a bit once she realized she laid on the threatening tone a little too thick, but her expression remained impassive as she gave Nick a pointed look.

"Sorry…I've already had to endure teasing from Elliot about this while you guys were away. Believe me, if I had something else available, I wouldn't be wearing this."

"Hmm…interesting," said Nick, placing his fist up against the underside of his muzzle as he pretended to study Judy's choice of clothing.

Judy could clearly see Nick trying his hardest to hold back a laughing fit through his feeble attempt to hide his muzzle from her, but she decided it was best just to let him have his fun, so she remained silent.

Eventually, though, the paw against his muzzle suddenly shot out, a finger in the air as it signaled that Nick was acting like he had gotten a great idea.

"Ah ha! I've got just the thing to fix this. You wait here, Fluff, and I'll be right back."

Without even waiting for a reply, Nick shot out of the room, leaving Judy severely confused as she heard the sounds of Nick bounding down the hallway disappear after a minute or so passed.

Judy barely even moved over the next few minutes, staring at the closed door as she wondered just what had gotten Nick so excited that he'd be going out into the streets considering how dangerous it was nowadays.

Her questions were soon answered, however, when the door opened and she was barely able to register Nick returning before a small bundle hit her in the face.

Scrambling, it took Judy a few seconds for her to realize what was going on, but after that, she somehow managed to pull the bundle off of her face and hold it in front of her.

Her face soon lit up, though, when she found out exactly what she was looking at, which was a purple striped blouse with a pair of jeans.

"How did you even get these, Nick? I thought I left them back at my apartment!"

"You did. I managed to…"convince" Eric to let me stop there after getting the van back. I went up the fire escape and into the window."

Judy could hear a huff coming from over where Eric was sitting, but she ignored it in favor of rushing over and giving Nick a hug, quickly loosening her grip when she heard Nick grunt in pain.

"Sorry about that."

"No problem. We should probably get to bed, though. It's getting late."

Through Nick's pained answers, Judy glanced at the window and noticed that it was very dark, the lights on the streets having already been turned on a while back.

Judy was about ready to rush into the bathroom to change into her more comfortable clothes, but before she shut the door behind her, she looked over at the fox, who regarded her with a warm smile.

"Thanks for getting this for me, Nick."

Nick nodded, and as Judy closed the door behind her, Nick hopped into one of the comfortable chairs, the TV thankfully not affecting his ability to sleep as he closed his eyes once getting into a comfortable position.


	18. Chapter 18

The next morning came, and Nick opened his eyes, only to wince when he was greeted by the sun poking through the unfortunately not covered windows.

The sun wasn't the only problem, though, as when he finally took the time to move, he realized that he felt incredibly sore.

"Wow, no wonder no one ever sleeps on a chair," he said under his breath, huffing as he slowly pulled himself out of the chair and on to the floor.

Thankfully, his ribs didn't hurt when his feet hit the floor, although whether it was because of the fact that his soreness was so much more of a problem or not, he wasn't sure.

Still, he really didn't want to dwell on that fact, as he'd had enough problems since this whole mess started.

After stretching out his back and being careful not to aggravate his rib injury, Nick walked over to the table where the TV was set, grabbing the pill bottle he left there and popping a painkiller into his maw.

"Hopefully that'll help."

After stretching out his neck in an attempt to relieve some of the fuzziness in his brain thanks to the early hour, Nick walked over to the bedroom door, coming to a stop a few feet in front of it.

Looking to the side, Nick picked up the collared shirt he had on last night, slipping it on as he silently thanked whoever was listening that he'd remembered that it wasn't a good idea to attempt to sleep in a shirt that wasn't designed for sleeping. He could just imagine the looks he'd get walking around if it was wrinkled.

Just as before, Nick kept it unbuttoned, letting his undershirt continue to be exposed, mostly because at this point he didn't care about trying to look presentable.

Making his way through the door into the bedroom, Nick found that both Judy and Finnick were up and ready to go.

"You're up early, Fin. I know Carrots always likes to wake up at ungodly hours, but I didn't expect to see you do it, too."

"Well, when you've got a hyperactive bunny constantly badgering you to get up, you're going to have to get used to it eventually."

"Hey! I'm not hyperactive!" said Judy, crossing his arms as she gave Finnick a glare.

"Then why is your foot tapping so much then?"

Judy looked down and noticed that her foot was indeed tapping at an accelerated pace. Groaning in annoyance, Judy forced her foot to stop moving before looking over at the others and noticing Nick's bemused look.

"What? It's a habit, alright? I can't help that I'm a rabbit."

Nick had to resist the urge to call the pout she had on cute, knowing how much that would cause problems, but thankfully he was able to keep his muzzle shut.

Turning back towards Finnick, Nick was about to make a snide comment on his choice of replacement clothes, which turned out to be a simple blue t-shirt and khakis combo, but before he could do so, Finnick spoke up first, beating him to the punch.

"Hey Nick, have you seen Eric around?"

"No, why?" he asked, having not seen the otter around since he got up not too long ago.

"I just wanted to apologize to him for everything that happened last night."

"Wow, Fin's getting sentimental all of a sudden! Where did this come from?"

"Shut it, Wilde!"

Finnick adopted a hard edge to his look as he glared at Nick. However, the larger fox wasn't fazed by Finnick's attempt at intimidation so the smaller fox sighed, pinching the bridge of his muzzle before explaining himself.

"Look, we've got a tough fight ahead of us, and we're not going to get anywhere if we're at each other's throats like this."

"Okay, I see your point, but you said exactly what Carrots said last night. Any chance you could come up with something more original?"

Nick was obviously joking with his last comment, as he never really had any intention of having him rethink his explanation.

Thankfully, Finnick managed to catch the subtle hint in Nick's expression, and while he did give Nick a dark glare, he remained silent, leaving Judy puzzled as she wondered what was going on between those two.

Luckily for the two foxes, Judy didn't even get a chance to ask, because only a few seconds after the exchange was finished, she managed to hear the front door open thanks to her good hearing.

"Sounds like Eric's back. You ready to go out and mend fences with him?" she asked.

Finnick didn't look thrilled, but he didn't put up any kind of argument, so after letting some air out through his nostrils, he made his way over to the door and opened it, Judy and Nick following close behind to serve as mediators if need be.

Thankfully, Eric was in fact in the kitchen area when they went out into the main part of the apartment. As the three of them walked closer, Judy couldn't help but notice that Eric seemed to be digging furiously through a drawer that from the glimpse she got looked relatively packed with random junk.

Although admittedly a little curious as to why Eric was acting this way, Judy held her tongue as she chose to get his attention using a different method.

"Hey Eric. Where've you been?" she asked, trying her best to keep her voice calm so that the otter wouldn't take it the wrong way.

While the otter did jump, having not expected her to sneak up on him like that, his tone was surprisingly cordial, which made Judy think that either she was successful in not offending him, or it was possible that he may not have been paying attention.

Either way, once he realized what was going on, he quickly closed the drawer before turning around to face the others, a smile on his muzzle.

"Hey. I had to uh…talk to a few of my colleagues. They wouldn't answer the phone for some reason, so I had to go out to where they lived. It was kind of annoying, but what can you do?"

Judy was fully ready to believe him, but Nick wasn't as convinced. Even with the otter being a professional at what he did, Nick's years of experience reading faces made him realize that something was up.

"You know, I'm not sure I buy that story."

"And why not?" asked Eric, looking unhappy at being called out this way.

"It's dangerous to us to be out on the streets, remember? I'm pretty sure someone like you would be smart enough not to risk getting caught on camera for something as miniscule as that, am I right?"

Even though he was clearly being exposed, Eric didn't want to go down without a fight, so instead of relenting, he stared Nick down, his expression hardened as he mentally urged Nick to stand down.

Unfortunately for him, Nick was just as potent doing this kind of work, so his own expression remained unimpressed, crossing his arms as he looked down at the smaller otter.

The stare down ended up getting to the point where even Judy and Finnick were trading looks, wondering just how much longer it was going to go on. Thankfully, though, it didn't take much longer before Eric was the first one to break.

"Alright! Fine! I went to go scope out City Hall."

Eric's admission caught practically everyone else off guard, especially Finnick, although the fennec fox barely showed it.

"Okay, so why did you feel the need to hide that fact?" asked Judy, slightly puzzled as to why Eric was acting that way.

"I just didn't want to make you guys upset that we went through all of this trouble to make it clear that it wasn't safe to go outside only to go out to one of the most dangerous areas of the city."

"So, did you find out anything?" asked Nick, wanting to move the subject forwards before things got even more awkward.

"Not much. In my rush to get out there, I completely forgot to grab my binoculars. They're buried in this drawer somewhere last I remember." he said, pointing towards the drawer he was digging through when they entered the room.

"Ah, I see. Still, I think you really shouldn't be running around the city without letting us know. We were worried about you, especially Finnick."

Judy gestured towards the small fox, who whipped his head around to face her, no doubt surprised by her unexpected description.

"Oh, really?" asked Eric, giving Finnick a bemused look.

"Yeah, and by the way, I do believe that he has something to say to you."

She could see Finnick's bewildered expression out of the corner of her eye, but thankfully she managed to keep her focus on Eric so that she didn't make it look like she was forcing him to do it.

After a few seconds of silence had passed, Finnick finally sighed as he said what he wanted to say.

"Look, I know we've had some problems last night."

"That's an understatement," said Eric under his breath.

Luckily, Eric's comment didn't faze Finnick, as the fennec's focus was on getting the apology out of the way. He wasn't used to acting this way normally, so it was a little difficult at first. However, once he got going, he had no problem.

"I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted. Now, personally I'm glad that we got the van back, but after taking some time to think, I realized that I was putting the safety of the van in front of the safety of you, Nick and I, and for that I'm sorry."

Finnick fell silent, having said all that he could think of as an apology. As Judy looked over to where Eric was standing, she could see that the otter was lost in thought, no doubt trying to decide whether it was worth forgiving him for what he was put through.

Eventually, the paw that he had against his muzzle dropped back to his side, and everyone watched as he finally gave his answer.

"Apology accepted."

"What?"

"Apology accepted."

Finnick did not expect to be forgiven so easily, so hearing those two words rendered him almost speechless for a little bit.

Eventually, though, Judy could see an uncharacteristic smile on the fox's muzzle as Finnick finally felt happy for once in his life.

However, the moment didn't last very long, as once a few more seconds had passed, Eric's demeanor changed as he adopted an air of authority.

"You guys should probably get something to eat. The meeting starts in about an hour, and I don't want anyone complaining about being hungry."

"Wait, I thought you said the meeting was supposed to be in the afternoon." said Nick, slightly confused as he glanced at the window to make sure that it was still morning.

"I got a call from Elliot this morning before I left. He told me that it might be better to get the meeting done as early as possible with how quickly Bellwether's moving to lock down the city, so he discussed it with the others, and they all agreed to come earlier than usual."

Judy could tell that Nick was a little confused with how things have turned out considering last night Wolford seemed so confident that the afternoon meeting would work fine. She was more on Wolford's side in terms of his line of reasoning, though, considering she also wanted to get this whole mess done as soon as possible as well.

"Well, I guess all we can do is adapt. We knew what we signed up for, so I guess we just have to take changes like these in stride."

"You're certainly taking it well, Nick."

"Can't be doom and gloom all the time, Fin," he said, giving Finnick a sidelong glance before deciding to make his way to the kitchen.

Although Judy did spend a few moments staring at Nick's back as he dug through the refrigerator, wondering just what was going on with him, she decided it was best not to dwell on it, figuring that he was just coping with their situation in his own way.

Walking over, she joined Nick in looking for something to eat while Finnick brought up the rear.

An hour had passed, and Judy, Nick, Finnick and Eric found themselves still inside Eric's apartment, but this time they had guests, including Wolford, Snarlof, Delgato and Grizzoli.

The air in the room was admittedly a little uncomfortable, as Snarlof, Delgato and Grizzoli towered over the other smaller mammals (Wolford less so), and even though Judy was used to hanging around with them, having two polar bears and a lion sitting across from her was still a little intimidating.

Sighing, Judy decided to take point, figuring that it was better to get things started so they could get this done at a reasonable time.

"So, before we get started, is there any preferences as to what you three want to be referred to as?" she asked, gesturing towards the three larger mammals.

Surprisingly, this seemingly innocent question only got her looks of confusion from the three of them.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough. Wolford here wanted to be referred to by his first name Elliot so it doesn't remind him of when he was still a police officer. I just wanted to be sure that any of you guys didn't feel the same way."

"Well, when you put it that way, I'm fine with whatever you want to call me," said Grizzoli, his expression noticeably brighter now that he understood what Judy was talking about.

"Okay, sounds fine with me," said Judy.

Unfortunately, considering she'd only spent around a month or so inside the precinct with these guys, she never really had much of a chance to remember their first names, so she kept herself busy trying to remember exactly what they were.

Thankfully, even though Grizzoli did give Judy a bit of a miffed look, he remained cordial as he had a general idea as to what she was having trouble with.

"My name's Frank, by the way."

"Thank you. Sorry…I'm just so used to calling you by your last name, I completely forgot the first one."

"It's fine, Judy, just…don't forget it again."

"Alright, I won't."

Satisfied that things were proceeding smoothly, Judy moved on to the other two.

"How about you two?"

"It's Boris, and I prefer the first name, if you don't mind," said Snarlof.

"And I'm Samuel," said Delgato. "I'm okay with whichever."

"Good. Now that we've got that settled, how about we get started?"

Judy looked over at Eric, who sat up as he took charge, having done most of the work to prepare.

Surprisingly, though, Eric didn't seem too keen on sharing the idea he had in mind, considering he was either the second or third shortest mammal in the group (depending on if you count Judy's ears or not), and the three newcomers could easily squash him flat.

Still, after a bit of prodding from Nick and Judy from their parts of the room, Eric sighed before finally sharing his plan. However, even those two didn't expect to hear what he had to say.

"So…how do you four feel about being a distraction?"


	19. Chapter 19

Even though Eric was almost expecting the answer he got, he still winced when almost everyone in the room started to argue against what he had thrown out. What came as a surprise to him, though, was that even Nick, Judy and Finnick did not look happy about what he had suggested, although there was a distinct possibility that they were all expecting something a little more substantial.

"Guys! Guys, hold on a second!" he shouted, trying his best to be heard over the noise.

Thankfully, after a few seconds had passed, the others in the room did quiet down, and once Eric was sure that everyone was listening, he continued speaking.

"Now, let me explain what I mean. I know I wanted you guys to serve as distractions, but there's more to it than that."

"Really?" asked Delgato, sounding unconvinced. "And what would this entail?"

Eric didn't answer immediately, which made all four of the former officers look wary as they wondered whether they were being led on.

However, once he actually shared what he knew, this completely caught them off guard.

"Have any of you ever heard of the Razorbacks?"

After a few seconds pause to let the question hang in the air, Eric looked at each of the larger mammals in turn, all four of them with looks of confusion on their muzzles.

"I kind of figured. Frankly, we'd only found out about them a couple weeks ago."

Eric cleared his throat before continuing on.

"Well, unfortunately Bellwether's done a better job at hiding their existence than I thought they were, because I tried to do some research on them and came up with nothing. All we know is that they're an elite group of bodyguards assigned to protect the Mayor at all costs. And judging from our experiences with them, they're pretty damn good at their jobs."

"So, I'm guessing that you want us to keep them busy so that you guys can do whatever it is that you're going to do, correct?" asked Snarlof.

"Not just you guys, Boris. I believe that we need to start a full-blown uprising if we're going to have a chance."

"A full-blown uprising? Isn't that a little hasty?" asked Judy.

"Not at all," said Eric, looking over towards the rabbit. "With the amount of time we have left, we need to get this done if we're going to have any chance to return Zootopia to the way it used to be."

Judy still wasn't completely convinced that this plan was the best way to go, but she surprisingly kept her mouth shut, allowing Eric to continue speaking.

Unfortunately, before he could actually go any further in explaining his plan, he was interrupted when Wolford stood up, holding his paws out in front of him to silence everyone around him.

"Okay, so I get your point. We need as much help as we can get to take down Bellwether. There's one problem, though."

As he continued speaking, the timber wolf pointed to the collar around his neck, the green light shining brightly through the low light of the apartment building.

"You do realize that these are still here, right? We get riled up any further than mild annoyance and these pieces of junk are going to shut the uprising down faster than you can say 'Screw you, Bellwether'."

"And there's also the fact that the ZPD's SWAT team are all carrying remotes that can manually set off collars, so that's going to end things quickly," said Grizzoli.

This silenced Eric for a few minutes, as he admittedly hadn't thought of that part when he came up with his frankly harebrained scheme.

However, once those few minutes had passed, he had somehow managed to come up with a way around this issue.

"Easy. All we have to do is get our paws on one of those collar unlocking keys, and we're golden."

"And how do you suppose we do that?" asked Nick, scratching at an itchy spot underneath his bandages. "Last I've heard, the only mammals that actually carry those keys are in the big hospitals, and even then they only use it when there's a suitable emergency at a predator clinic. Frankly, it almost never leaves a prey's paw."

"Well, what's say we just lure one of them over to a predator clinic and steal the key from them?" asked Snarlof. "It's our best option short of getting one from a hospital, and we have no idea where in the building they keep them."

"I gotta agree with ol' Boris here," said Delgato. "Any other way and we'd just be putting our plan in unnecessary danger."

Slowly, everyone else in the room showed in their own way that they agreed that ambushing the doctor was their best way to get a collar key. Even Judy agreed with the plan despite her initial reservations about the entire plan in general.

"How about you, Fin? You've been pretty quiet during this whole meeting," said Eric, his tone more upbeat since receiving all of these votes of confidence.

Not expecting to be pulled into the conversation like this, Finnick ended up staring at Eric for a few seconds, bewildered, before he finally answered.

"Hey, if you guys are okay with this plan, I'll go along with it."

Although Eric wasn't exactly happy with Finnick's refusal to give his own input, he decided it was probably best not to go too deep into trying to get a better answer out of him, so while he did give the fennec fox a disappointed look, he didn't say anything further to him, instead focusing his attention on everyone else.

"Okay, I think we're moving along quite well. Unfortunately, it looks like it's getting late, so we're going to have to start putting things together tomorrow."

Both Judy and Nick glanced over at the window and noticed that it was indeed starting to get dark. Judy was frankly a bit surprised that so much time had passed considering it felt like barely any had done so.

As for Nick, his mind was more on how they were going to pull this off. Their first attempt as bringing down the mad sheep was as well-planned as he believed they could get, and yet it still failed, so he was honestly unsure if this would be any better.

After the larger mammals headed home for the day, leaving the original group behind, Nick audibly sighed.

"Well, I guess we should probably go talk to Honey. She seems like the most likely mammal to help us, considering what she's like."

"That's what I was thinking," said Eric. "Is there something on your mind, though, Nick? You don't look too happy."

Nick briefly considered sharing his worries, but after a few seconds passed, he rethought what he was going to say.

"Nah, I'm good. Just a little nervous. I never really pulled this kind of stunt off before."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm sure everyone's nervous. Besides, I'm confident we'll pull this off."

"And that's what worries me," Nick said under his breath, his voice thankfully going unheard as Finnick had chosen that moment to turn on the small television set that had not been moved from where Judy had originally set it last night.

The next morning came, and Nick was once again wide awake after spending the night sleeping on the padded chair he was on the previous night.

Unfortunately, his sleep this past night wasn't as comfortable as last night was. He was so focused on trying to plan for what they were going to do the next morning that he had somehow forgotten to take his painkillers, so predictably his ribs started to throb after a while once he'd gotten comfortable.

Normally if this kind of thing happened, he would simply attempt to try and find the bottle through the darkness, which wasn't too much of an issue considering he still had his night vision.

It wasn't so simple for Nick, however. Not only was there the fact that he didn't really want to have to find that comfortable spot again after already doing it once, he also could not recall where he'd left his pills.

Now, if the room was lighter, he would have just went around for a quick search and found it eventually. The only problem, though, was that Finnick had also chosen to sleep in the living room with him. Apparently having to share the bedroom with both Eric and Judy was a little too much for him, so he decided to leave it just to the two of them.

Sighing, Nick tried his best to ignore the pain, pressing his side up against the cushions in an attempt to make enduring it a little easier. It didn't work all that well, but it was enough that the fox felt like he wasn't going to burst out in tears.

Eventually, though, the rising sun became too much for him, and he was forced to open his eyes, squinting as he shielded them as best as he could with the only paw he had that wasn't pinned under his side.

Groaning, Nick slowly managed to pull himself off of the chair, mentally wishing that he could have an actual bed to sleep on one of these days. The lawn chair under the bridge was at least functional as a sleeping device, but it wasn't any more comfortable.

Through the mental haze of having only just woken up, Nick slowly trudged around the room, eventually finding the bottle of painkillers on the floor next to one of the chairs that was currently pushed in under the kitchen table.

Unfortunately, as Nick took a look at the bottle, he realized that there were only a few pills left, which was admittedly a little strange. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he did end up going through a fair share of the pills over the past couple of days since returning from the clinic considering his ribs were being incredibly stubborn and refusing to stop hurting. What he didn't expect was to have already gone through most of the bottle so soon.

After making a mental note to ask Honey for a new bottle, Nick popped a pill into his maw, sighing in contentment as he eagerly awaited for the medicine to take effect so he could actually move freely again.

Once he felt like he was able to, he finally went to get dressed. Now, normally he would have just had his outer shirt hung up, but the previous night was unnaturally warm compared to others, so he chose to remove his muscle shirt as well and go bare chested. It wasn't something he normally did, but he felt that the circumstances were enough that he wouldn't mind trying it out.

By the time he actually managed to pull his muscle shirt back over his head (which he immediately regretted when a twinge of pain went through his ribs), Finnick had woken up, and after taking a few seconds to actually be awake to the world, he looked over and saw Nick frozen, in the middle of slipping one of his arms into the sleeve of his outer shirt.

"Oh hey, you're up," said Nick, adopting his normal half-lidded stare as he watched Finnick pull himself out of his chair.

"Somehow. Frankly, I'm surprised I'm still able to move after sleeping on a block like that thing," he said, jerking a thumb towards said chair. "Oh, and by the way, screw you for taking the comfortable chair."

"Hey, don't blame me. You should have come out and claimed the chair two days ago instead of attempting to sleep in the bedroom with Carrots and Eric."

Finnick audibly grumbled in protest, but he kept his muzzle shut, realizing that Nick did in fact have him there.

"Are you just going to stand there and do your coat rack impression, or are you going to actually put that thing on?"

Nick paused, slightly confused for a moment before he suddenly realized that he still hadn't moved from the position he was in when Finnick first woke up.

Sheepish, Nick turned away from Finnick, slipping his arms into his sleeves just as the door opened and revealed Judy, looking somehow as fresh as ever despite none of them ever really having a chance to get a shower in the past few days thanks to the exorbitant rates being charged for water from the landlord.

"Morning, everyone," she said, her tone catching Nick's attention.

"You're sounding positively chipper today, Carrots," commented Nick as he sat down on the chair he was originally sleeping on.

"Why thank you," she said, nodding her head slightly as she playfully accepted the compliment. "But seriously, though, I'm just in a good mood today."

"How so?"

"Well, I'll be the first to admit that I had some reservations about our plan to take down Bellwether, but after talking privately to Eric last night, he's convinced me. I think we've really got a chance to pull this off."

"Really?" asked Nick, a slight stutter in his voice when he realized that he wasn't the only one who had issues with this plan. "Would you mind sharing what he said with the class?"

"Well…he told me that we're going to be getting together a bunch of supplies and create a bunch of fake collars while you and Finnick are getting your paws on that key. The ZPD will think that they've got the situation under control, but when they try to trigger them, it won't work."

"Ah, I see. If we catch them off guard, it would raise the possibility of Bellwether sending out the Razorbacks to keep control."

"Admittedly that line of reasoning didn't exactly come up during my talk, but yeah, I think it's definitely a possibility."

Nick fell silent, mulling this new part of the plan in his mind. While there was still a part of him that was a little wary about how well this new plan was going to go, the confidence that Judy displayed combined with the (for lack of a better word) deviousness of what she shared with him made him actually think that there was a chance that it could work.

Now, to be fair, Nick had always prided himself as a realist. He'd shown Judy just how much of it he was back when the two of them first met. However, while he could see that what Eric had pulled together wasn't exactly foolproof, by this point he was more than willing to take anything if it meant having a good chance at returning to a normal life without having to worry about being thrown back in jail for the rest of his life.

"Sounds good to me," he said. "And speaking of the key, I should really give Honey a ring. I'm sure she'll be eager to help once I've explained things."

"You do that. The others should be here in about an hour to start putting the plan into motion."

"Cool. Looks like Operation: Smellwether-Be-Gone is a go."

The two of them fell silent, Nick waggling his eyebrows a bit as he waited to see what Judy would say next.

"That was terrible," said Judy.

"Hey, not all my jokes are Grade A material, Carrots."

Judy quickly shook her head, an amused look on her face before she quickly shooed Nick off towards the phone.

As for Nick, he quickly made his way over to the telephone, pulling out his bottle of painkillers and using the phone number scribbled on the label to dial her office.

And as the badger picked up the phone and went through her normal spiel for verifying what her business entailed, Nick let some air out of his nostrils before he finally spoke up.

"Hey, Honey! It's Nick, how are you doing?"


	20. Chapter 20

Apologies for the long wait, you guys. As I've said in my most recent NSGO chapter, Persona 5 was eating up my time, but thankfully I've finally finished it. Hopefully this means that updates'll speed up a bit, but take it with a grain of salt.

* * *

"Nick? I thought I told you to call me in an emergency. I almost thought that they were coming for me!"

Nick was about ready to launch into his explanation of their plan. However, his words caught in his throat when he registered the last thing that Honey spoke of.

"Wait, who's coming for you? Do you need one of us to come over and help out?" he asked, slightly panicked.

"We've been through this, Nick! The sheep know that I'm a threat, and now that one of them's the mayor, I'm just waiting for them to come pick me up and send me off to jail!"

Nick paused, sighing in exasperation when he realized just what she was going on about.

"Honey, listen, I've told you multiple times when I was there that you're going to be alright. There's no sheep conspiracy, and they're not out to get you. Frankly, I'm almost positive that you're barely even a blip on their radar."

Honey made a dismissive noise that told Nick that she didn't believe him one bit, but thankfully she chose not to argue her point any further, allowing Nick to finally say what he was originally trying to say.

"Hey, Honey, can I ask you a favor?"

Honey didn't answer immediately, which worried Nick a bit as he was beginning to believe that his comments on her 'sheep conspiracy' paranoia irked her a bit.

Thankfully, though, his concerns were abated somewhat when he heard an audible sigh coming from the other end of the line.

"I don't know why I'm doing this considering I barely even know you, but…what did you need?"

A small smile crossed Nick's muzzle knowing that things were going well for him. He quickly explained everything he could remember about their plan to get their paws on to a collar unlock key, sounding almost giddy as he spoke.

Eventually, he soon fell silent, waiting anxiously to see whether Honey would be up for helping them out.

"So…" said Honey, letting that word hang for a few moments before continuing on. "You're asking me to assist in kidnapping a doctor and using his key to release hundreds of predators from their collars so that they can cause a distraction while you sneak in and grab proof that Bellwether's behind the Night Howler conspiracy. Did I get that all right?"

"That's right." said Nick, mentally preparing himself for the chewing out he believed he was going to receive.

However, what he actually received was something he really didn't expect to get.

"Well, come on over and let's get this started!"

Nick's eyes quickly widened, stunned by the cheerful tone that Honey had, not to mention the fact that she had no complaints whatsoever with what he had planned.

"Whoa, hang on. You're alright with this?"

"Of course!"

"You do realize that we're putting you at risk of losing your clinic, right? Heck, you're risking getting arrested and possibly getting sent to the Devil's Backbone, for crying out loud!"

"I know, Nick! I know."

The conversation soon turned a little awkward as Honey fell silent, unsure about what to say next after her outburst.

"You still there, Honey?"

"Yeah, I am."

Honey then fell silent for a few more moments before finally explaining what was going through her mind.

"Nick, I'm not going to lie. I know that we barely know each other and all, but honestly, I'm confident that we can pull this off without any problems."

"You serious?" asked Nick, the stunned look still on his muzzle.

"Yeah, I am. Besides, there is more than one clinic in this godforsaken place. It's not the end of the world if I lose mine."

"Well, to be fair, you are the easiest to get to."

"True."

Honey then let out a little chuckle, which thankfully helped Nick calm down a bit from his stunned state as he readopted his normal tone.

"Alright, Honey, we'll be over in about an hour from now. Fin's got to get some stuff together, but we'll be on our way soon."

"Sounds good. I'll close up shop a little early to make sure there are no witnesses who'll tip the authorities off."

"Good idea. I'll see you in a bit."

After listening to Honey say her goodbye for the moment, Nick placed the receiver back on the dock before turning around to face the bedroom door, where Finnick had conveniently just emerged from.

"Yo, Fin. Guess where we're going?"

Despite Nick's eager tone, Finnick's sour expression didn't exactly change much. Thankfully, he remained silent, allowing Nick to speak even though the taller fox was a little disappointed that his friend didn't go along with his joke.

"Honey's up for helping us out with getting that key, so get what you need. I want to get out of here as soon as possible."

"Fine. Give me a few minutes."

Finnick then quickly turned around, disappearing back into the bedroom and around the corner to where Nick was unable to see him through the doorway.

The room didn't exactly stay silent for long, though, as it didn't take too long before Judy and Eric came out of the bedroom, the latter sporting a duffle bag that was almost as long as he was tall.

"Hey, we're going to head out and start collecting supplies for the fake collars. Everything go well with Honey?"

"Yep, she's all in."

"Good."

It was then that Nick noticed that Eric didn't have his usual black turtleneck on. In fact, his ensemble was surprisingly normal for someone of his notoriety, consisting of a dark red t-shirt and tan slacks.

"I was beginning to think you didn't have any normal clothes, Eric."

"Hey, I need some way to blend in to crowds when I'm out on the town."

"Yeah, you're lucky you don't stand out from all of the other otters, bro." said Finnick, having just returned from his foray into the bedroom with his own bag filled with stuff.

"Thank god for that."

Eric then reached into his pocket, pulling out a pair of aviator sunglasses and slipping them on. This piqued Nick's curiosity considering from his point of view, he looked quite good.

He chose not to make a comment on said feelings, though. Instead, he mentally made a note to grab a pair himself and see how they looked before joining Finnick over near the bedroom door.

"Ready to go, Fin?"

"Yeah…let's get this over with."

Nick glanced over towards the front door and noticed that the other two were already making their way through said door. As much as he wanted to confront Finnick on his less-than-enthusiastic attitude, he realized that this probably wouldn't be the best time to do so.

Sighing heavily, Nick began making his way over to the door, Finnick following close behind if the rustle of all of the items in his bag were any indication.

"What's in there, anyway?" asked Nick as he went to close the door behind them after they exited the apartment.

"Just some of our old supplies we used for cons. We need to be convincing if we're going to get that doctor into the clinic, right?"

"Right." said Nick, pleasantly surprised as he realized that he had yet to think of that fact.

Falling silent, Nick followed Finnick as the two of them made their way down the stairs. However, as he watched the smaller fox make his way down, his still unchanging body language was starting to irritate the tod.

As much as he wanted to save the confrontation for a point where they at least had some privacy (like in the van), Nick couldn't resist waiting any longer, so after finally reaching the bottom floor, he sighed once more and started speaking once more.

"Okay Fin, what's your deal?"

"What are you talking about?"

Finnick turned around and gave Nick a look of puzzlement. However, thanks to the years of experience that Nick had in reading faces, alarm bells went off in his head as he knew that something was up.

"Don't play dumb with me, Fin. You've been acting…well…like yourself since the meeting yesterday."

Finnick didn't answer, instead choosing to open the door and make his way outside.

Nick was undeterred, though, as he quickly gave chase, closing the door as he rushed to cut off the fennec's means of escape.

"Seriously, if this is about our plan, I'm willing to listen. Both Carrots and I have had our concerns, but we talked it out, and now we're fine. Who's to say the same thing won't happen to you?"

Finnick paused in his movements, his paw in the middle of reaching towards the driver's side door of the van.

Eventually, when it almost got to the point where Nick was beginning to worry, he finally heard a sigh coming from the fox in front of him.

"Hop in. I'll explain on the way."

Nick was admittedly a little annoyed that Finnick was making it look like he was only going through with the plan begrudgingly, judging by his actions, but he did soon realize that he would have been asking for it if they discussed an extremely important plan right out in the middle of the street.

So, after pausing for a few moments to watch Finnick hop his way into his seat and stash the bag on the floor below the other seat, Nick finally started moving, rounding around the front of the car before making his way into the passenger seat, the taller fox having to maneuver his feet around the bag so that he didn't end up banging them into it and causing unnecessary damage.

Once Finnick finally got the van started and pulled out of the parking spot, Nick could hear another heavy sigh coming from his friend before he finally started explaining what was going on with him.

"Look, I know how confident you two are about this whole plan going off without a hitch and everything. Believe me, after hearing it during the meeting, I was almost beginning to believe it as well."

"Let me guess…you remembered how City Hall went, right?"

While Finnick was in fact a little miffed at the interruption, he managed to keep himself calm, not only to prevent a scene, but also to avoid triggering his collar. He remembered the last time that happened while he was driving all too well.

Instead of actually answering, though, Finnick simply nodded, which Nick thankfully managed to catch through the rearview mirror.

After letting some air out through his nostrils, Nick pulled himself up from his original position resting on the back of the seat as he rested his elbows on his thighs, turning to face Finnick.

"Listen, we were both worried about that fact, too. Honestly, I believe that the only reason we failed was because we were outmatched against the Razorbacks."

"So basically you're going with this 'bigger is better' routine."

"Something like that. You know, I am kind of being realistic here, but even if we don't get a ton of the really big preds to help us out, I know that we will have a good chance of winning thanks to the numbers game."

Nick remained silent for the next few moments, waiting to hear what Finnick thought about his explanation. He could even see the fennec mulling it around in his head, if his expression in the rearview mirror was any indication.

"Alright, I see your point." he said nonchalantly.

"You do?" asked Nick, slightly surprised by Finnick's change in tone.

"Yep. I'm still not a hundred percent convinced it's going to work, but I do see your point."

"Well, I…guess that's good enough. I mean, we've got to be ready for everything, right?"

This confused remark earned Nick a puzzled look from his counterpart, but thankfully Finnick remained silent, and the two of them chose to focus on preparing for the task ahead of them as they mapped out what to do.

"Alright, so…I think I've got a better chance of convincing the doctor that I'm hurt badly enough, so I think I'm going to be the one on the table, especially since I'm technically already hurt. Sounds good to you?"

"You've got no arguments from me. You want me to bite your face off? It'll make it look more realistic."

"Uh, no thanks. I think I've got it under control." said Nick, noticing the unnerving smile that the smaller fox had on his muzzle.

Nick quickly assumed that he may have irked Finnick a bit thanks to the comment about his acting ability, so he flashed an apologetic look through the rearview mirror before continuing on.

"Since I'll be the patient, I think that leaves you with carrying out the kidnapping. You think you can handle that?"

"As long as we don't get an elephant or anything, I think I'll be alright."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure they won't send one that size, Fin. Us preds may be lower than dirt on the totem pole, but they do have to at least show some kind of basic decency."

Through the corner of his eye, Nick could see Finnick shrugging, seemingly conceding Nick's point.

"Sounds good. Anything else important that we need to think about?"

Nick was about ready to say that he's covered everything he could think of. However, after a few seconds, a thought popped into his head, and he nearly swore when he realized he forgot something very important.

"Ah crud, I just realized that we're going to need rope and tape. We can't let that doctor get away from us and warn City Hall."

"Isn't there some in the back when we pulled that magic show con a year or so back? I swear I don't remember throwing those out."

Nick was a little confused at first as to what Finnick was talking about, but after a few seconds of thought, he suddenly remembered that con did in fact happen.

There were quite a bit of failed cons that the two of them attempted to try before they hit it big with the pawpsicles, and a series of magic shows was one of them. Needless to say, Nick wasn't the best at sleight of paw, so they were frankly lucky that they weren't run out of town after the last botched show.

After waiting for a smooth stretch of road, Nick unbuckled his seat belt before climbing into the back end of the van. Over the next few minutes, the only sound outside of the van's engine was Nick rustling through the piles of supplies before he finally came up with a length of rope and a roll of masking tape.

"Man, we went through a lot of tape." commented Nick as he held up the roll, which had barely any tape left.

"Well, at least we've got enough for one more use. Come on, we're here."

Nick was barely paying attention to what was around him in his zeal to find the rope and tape, so he was admittedly a little caught off guard once he realized that they were already pulling into a parking spot in an alleyway over by the clinic.

"Don't want anyone to get suspicious if they see the van." explained Finnick after a questioning look from Nick.

Nodding in understanding, Nick coiled the rope up, making the loop small enough so that he could carry it in one paw, exiting the van through the back door as he twirled the roll of tape around on one finger.

"Ready to do this?" he asked once he rejoined Finnick in front of the van.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

After taking a few moments to work up the courage, the two of them finally started making their way towards the clinic, ready to finally get things moving in their plan to overthrow Bellwether.


	21. Chapter 21

Once Nick and Finnick finally made it up to the building where Honey's practice was located, it was all business for the two of them.

The front door was locked up tight, showing them that Honey was serious about making sure there were no witnesses around to blow their cover.

Thankfully, though, they were both told during their last trip that there was also a back door that was only accessible through an alleyway nearby, so once they managed to cross the street, they quickly veered off in the direction of said alleyway, disappearing into it once they were sure they weren't being followed.

"You sure Honey's the best mammal to pull this off?" asked Finnick as they turned the corner to the rear of the building. "I usually tend to stay away when you have to go through this many steps just to visit someone without anyone else knowing."

"We've been through this, Fin." said Nick, sighing heavily. "She's literally the only option we've got. Besides, it's too late to change our minds on this."

"Yeah, I know. I'd just…prefer not to have someone who thinks that sheep are going to take over the world. You get me?"

"I guess."

Despite all of his inner thoughts telling him to abandon what they were about to do and find someone more stable, Nick soldiered on, rapping his knuckles on the steel door that covered the back entrance to the clinic.

After a few seconds of silence where Nick was beginning to wonder if Honey even heard his knock, he was thankfully able to hear the thunk of multiple locks being released before the door finally opened to reveal the honey badger in question.

Nick opened his muzzle, ready with a joke to defuse the obvious tension that was going on between not just him and Finnick, but with Honey as well. However, before he could actually do so, he was immediately pulled through the doorway by a pawful of his undershirt, nearly tripping over his own feet as Honey let go.

"You know, you didn't have to pull so hard, Honey. I would have walked in here myself." commented Nick as he brushed himself off, quickly checking to make sure that Honey's claws didn't accidentally tear his undershirt.

Honey was barely paying any attention to what Nick was saying, though. Instead, once Finnick managed to make his way through the doorway, she poked her head out of said doorway, looking back and forth a few times to make sure no one was around before finally shutting the door and locking what seemed like an insane number of deadbolts.

Frankly, Nick was a little surprised a door would be able to fit that many deadbolts. He couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in surprise as it got to the point where she even had to kneel down to reach one.

Eventually, though, she did manage to get the door locked up insanely tight (at least with Nick's level of standards). Once she did so, she quickly turned back to the other two occupants of the room, staring at them for a few moments before clapping her paws together, catching both of them off guard.

"So, how about we get started? I'm looking forwards to getting this stupid thing off." she said cheerily, pointing to her collar as she spoke.

As for Nick and Finnick, the two of them were both understandably weirded out by Honey's sudden change in demeanor.

"What did I tell you? She's nuts!" said Finnick in a loud whisper, gesturing angrily towards the retreating badger, who was in the middle of leaving the room to get herself ready.

Thankfully, Honey was out of earshot, so she couldn't exactly hear Finnick's blunt assessment of her. However, Nick didn't want to take any chances, so after quickly shushing the smaller fox, he lightly pushed him towards the doorway Honey went through.

"Let's just get this over with. Believe me, after seeing that, I want to leave just as much as you do."

Finnick remained silent, his concerns still not abated thanks to Nick actually agreeing with him on Honey's state of mind.

Shaking his head in disgust, Finnick followed Nick as Honey led them into one of her exam rooms.

"I'm going to let you guys do what you need to do to get ready. Let me know when you're done, alright?"

"Where are you going to be, Honey?" asked Nick.

"In the back. I need to calm myself down if we're going to pull this off." she said, as she exited the room and turned towards the back of the clinic.

"How?" shouted Nick, hoping that she heard him.

"How do you think?"

Nick didn't answer back, knowing that Honey's question was more rhetorical than anything. However, while he was initially worried that she would do something dangerous and screw up their plan, after a few seconds he heard a small click coming from outside.

"Nothing to worry about. She's just getting a smoke." said Nick, more to himself than anything.

As for Finnick, though, he wasn't really in the mood to bandy about. So after waiting a few seconds to make sure that Honey wasn't going to kill herself, he quickly closed the door before roughly shoving Nick on to the table in front of him.

"Alright, take your shirt off."

"Wow, Fin, you're certainly coming on to me a little fast, aren't you?" asked Nick, unable to resist a crack at the multiple meanings of what he just said.

"Go screw yourself, Wilde. Now take off that shirt before I do it for you."

While admittedly a little disappointed that his joke fell flat, Nick did as he was asked and removed his overshirt, setting it down on the table next to him before pulling the muscle shirt over his head as well.

Unfortunately, Nick's act of undressing did end up tweaking his ribs a bit, and he visibly winced as the pain shot through his side.

"Ugh, remind me to get my painkillers refilled before we leave."

Finnick didn't answer, but as much as he wanted to just ignore Nick's request, he filed it in the back of his mind as he got to work.

Digging through the bag he brought with him, Finnick first pulled out a jar of soft dirt. After scooping out a pawful, he began patting Nick down, making sure to get him mostly dirty to make him look more convincing.

After spreading some more dirt on his pants, Finnick hopped down from the table once more, digging through the bag again before he finally pulled out a jar that Nick couldn't help but comment on.

"Fake blood? Really? I don't think I've ever seen you resort to that low form of trickery, Fin."

"Desperate times, Nick. And besides, it's either this or I beat you up myself. Then the blood will be real. You want that?"

"No, that's…quite alright." said Nick, quailing when he saw the dark glare that Finnick had on.

As Finnick began spreading the fake blood across the parts of Nick's chest, arms and other parts of his body that would look good, Nick once again couldn't keep his muzzle shut for long.

"You know, I'm pretty sure this is going to ruin my shirt."

"Oh boo hoo. It's your own fault for wearing all white."

"I know, Fin. I'm starting to regret that choice myself."

Thankfully, Nick remained silent after that, and once Finnick put the finishing touches on a blood splatter on Nick's cheek, he quickly moved on to the next step.

And so it went for the next few minutes as Finnick pulled out what seemed like a never-ending supply of makeup and other products, and Nick was increasingly looking like someone who'd just had the absolute crap kicked out of him.

The most visible "injury" that Nick was showing happened to be a pretty thick shiner that was painted under his left eye. That obviously wasn't the only way that Nick appeared as messed up as he was, though, as Finnick had spent a few minutes going to town on Nick's fur, mussing it up to the point where it looked like he'd been through a hurricane.

"You know, this really makes me feel like I'm back in prison after a round with the interrogators." commented Nick as he looked at his arms to get an idea of the job that Finnick had done.

"Well, I did my best. Hopefully the doctor will fall for it."

Finnick was in the middle of washing his paws, cleaning off as much of the mess he made as he could manage as he spoke. Eventually, after drying them off, he stepped out in front of the taller fox, shaking out his paws as he spoke.

"Listen, I've been thinking about how we're going to explain what happened to the doctor. Let me know what you think of this."

Finnick paused a moment to let Nick register what he'd just said before finally explaining himself.

"Okay, so…you were walking down the street when you accidentally ran into a bear, who just so happened to have a bit of a hair-trigger temper. Now, you didn't know that at the time, and you end up setting him off by saying something rude, and he beats the crap out of you. He nearly breaks your neck as well when he bashes you against a wall that had a protruding ledge. You think you can remember that?"

"Sounds simple enough. Do you think that the doctor will be convinced, though?"

"I doubt they'll care too much about the why if it involves a pred getting the crap kicked out of him, Nick."

"I see your point." said Nick after a few seconds mulling Finnick's reasoning.

"Alright, I'm going to go grab Honey. You just sit tight. I'll be back in a second."

Nick did as he was asked and stayed seated as Finnick left the room. As he waited, he carefully slipped his undershirt over his body, briefly lamenting the fact that he was going to have to get it replaced soon considering how difficult it was to get blood stains out of a white shirt.

He could also see the bright side of it as well, though. If they were going to be able to pull this off, they needed him to look bad enough that the doctor wasn't going to just walk away at first sight of him, and he was pretty sure that looking like he was nearly mauled to death would work nicely.

Sighing heavily, Nick briefly considered putting his overshirt on as well, but after a few seconds of thought, he realized that was probably not the best idea. Sure, he didn't actually have to pay anything to get it, considering he had Honey to thank for it, but he could tell that the shirt looked on the pricey side of things, and he really didn't want to waste valuable money on replacing it.

So, after gingerly picking it up with a part of his paw that wasn't covered with fake blood or dirt, Nick hopped down from the table, eventually finding a hook that was thankfully behind the door.

As he returned to the table, he could only really hope for the best as he mentally prepared himself to pull off possibly the hardest acting job he'd ever done in years.

Eventually, Finnick did return to the room with Honey in tow, and Nick could see the look of surprise on Honey's muzzle as she took a look at the state he was in.

"Wow, you weren't kidding. He looks like he's been run over by a dump truck."

"Thanks, Honey. You're a doll." said Nick sarcastically, not really in the mood to be reminded about how he looked.

"The doctor should be here in about a half an hour." said Honey, ignoring Nick's comment. "Luckily, Fin's story managed to convince the receptionist, and they said that they're bringing a collar key along."

"Awesome. So, I'm guessing you'll be handling the subduing, Fin?"

"Yup. We're going to be keeping the door open, and I'll be hiding behind it. You'll give me the signal, and I'll go from there."

"Sounds good. Any idea of who we're up against, Honey?"

"Not really. He sounded kind of small on the phone judging from his voice, but obviously you never really know until you see them in person."

This did kind of worry Nick a bit, as he didn't know what they were going to do if the doctor ended up being one of the larger prey animals. It was too late to reconsider, though, so all he could do was cross his fingers and hope that they would get someone easier to handle.

Nick began slowly breathing in and out, willing himself to calm down as he could feel his heart start to race thanks to the adrenaline. Even in his years of hustling, he'd never done anything this dangerous and this high-stakes.

If they screwed this up, not only would their plan be completely shot due to there being a good chance that Honey's clinic would be under more surveillance, but if they were recognized, there's no telling what would happen. They might just end up back in prison, and they won't have Mr. Big to help them this time.

Sighing heavily once more, Nick kicked his legs up on to the table, leaning his head against the pillow as he pressed his palms to his eyes, trying to relieve the headache that was coming on.

Unfortunately, it also led him accidentally getting some of the blood around his eyes on his paws. While he luckily avoided getting some of the blood into his eyes, he wasn't able to avoid getting yelled at by Finnick.

"Hey, be careful where you're touching! The blood's not dry yet!"

"Sorry. Do you need to repaint me?"

"Nah, it's fine. Just be careful."

Although Nick was admittedly a little concerned with Finnick's change in attitude, he saw no reason to go any further into it, as he figured that it probably wouldn't be best to do so especially with how tense it was inside the room.

So, in an attempt to keep his mind off of what they were about to try to do, Nick decided to take a bit of a nap to take a bit of the edge off of his nerves. He slowly closed his eyes, hoping that either of the other two in the room would notice what he was doing and wake him up when the time came.

While they did end up waking him up, it wasn't nearly enough time for it to have made much of a difference, so as he positioned himself so that it would be difficult for the doctor to see his face, his expression remained neutral as he looked away from the door.

He listened intently as Honey explained to the doctor what exactly was going on, thanking whoever was listening that she was acing remembering Finnick's story.

Soon enough, the room fell silent, except for the sound of footsteps as Nick heard someone come closer to the table where he was on.

"Is he awake?" asked an unfamiliar voice, which Nick assumed must have been the doctor.

"Yeah, he should be." said Honey.

"Good. Now, how about you turn around and show me what's wrong with you, huh?"

Nick was admittedly a little caught off guard after that last statement, partly because he didn't expect to be addressed so quickly, but mostly because he was expecting the doctor to act a little more nervous considering they were dealing with a predator.

Quickly forming a pained look, Nick slowly turned himself over, and when he finally got a look at the doctor in question, he was surprised to find out just who it was.


	22. Chapter 22

"Oh…crap."

These were the words that ran through Nick's mind as he took in the doctor that was standing in front of him.

As much as he wanted things to work out better for them, luck was not on their side today as their doctor turned out to be a hippo, a pair of glasses on his snout as he studied the (thankfully fabricated) charts for Nick.

While the doctor was distracted, Nick carefully stretched his body out so that he'd be able to see around the herbivore to where Honey was standing.

Nick quickly shot a look at her, his eyes wide as he tried his best to convey the message to do something to get us out of this mess before the doctor found out his injuries were fake. He clearly knew that Finnick didn't have much of a chance to subdue the larger mammal even with how feisty the little guy was, and he even doubted that he would help either if he tried to ambush the doctor together.

Silently, Nick placed his head back on to the pillow just in time, as the doctor had just finished reading the charts, placing the clipboard on to the table before walking towards the table.

"So, I hear that you've had a bad run-in with a bear recently?"

Nick was so busy trying desperately to come up with a backup plan to deal with this turn of events, that he almost forgot that he was supposed to be acting hurt.

"Yes, sir. It wasn't fun." he said dryly, adding a hint of weakness to his voice as he adopted a pained look.

"Well, in that case, I'll be careful."

The doctor then reached out with his hand, leaving it hovering over Nick's upper body as he addressed the supposedly injured fox.

"Now, I'm going to press down on some parts of your body. I want you to tell me when it hurts, alright?"

"No!" shouted Nick, way harder than he actually wanted to.

This caught the doctor off guard, as he didn't expect to hear this kind of outburst from Nick.

"I'm sorry?"

Realizing what he'd just done, Nick desperately tried to backpedal and make an excuse that the doctor would hopefully believe.

"Isn't it…isn't it kind of obvious from the way I look that I pretty much hurt all over?" he asked, slowly gesturing towards his fake wounds to accentuate his point. "I doubt there's really any point in doing that when I'm just going to say 'yes' every time."

Nick waited to see what the doctor would say, his nerves frayed as he hoped that everything on his body had dried by now if the doctor fails to believe him.

Unluckily, though, it appeared as if the doctor wasn't going to take Nick's word, and after some brief consideration, he reached his hand over Nick once more.

"I understand how you feel, but this is procedure. I can't really skip it just because someone doesn't want me to." he said, a jovial tone in his higher than normal voice despite the sheer weirdness of the situation.

His options limited, Nick was forced to stay put, silently panicking as he hoped that the plan wasn't going to just blow up in their faces.

"Honey, if you've got a plan in mind, you'd better be putting it into motion right now." thought Nick as he watched the doctor's hand creep closer to his chest, the only other thing in the room he could hear being rustling.

He closed his eyes, waiting for them to be exposed and destroy their only chance at saving the city, but somehow Lady Luck managed to intervene, as the hand didn't even come close to making contact with Nick's skin.

In fact, as Nick opened his eyes in an attempt to figure out what was going on, he could see the doctor swaying back and forth in front of him, almost as if he was drunk.

Looking around the hippo's massive girth, Nick tried to silently ask Honey what was going on, but before he could do so, the herbivore suddenly began to tip forwards.

Panicking, Nick was forced to throw himself off of the table to get out of the way of the falling hippo. Thankfully, he somehow managed to pull off a decent shoulder roll to avoid hurting his ribs, comfortably landing on his back despite the tile floor not being the most comfortable thing to land on.

The doctor wasn't as lucky as Nick, though. Normally, most doctors' offices use metal tables so that they could hold patients of almost all sizes. Unfortunately, considering the fact that Honey was only barely keeping her practice afloat as it was thanks to the political climate, she was only able to afford wooden tables, which while they were still decently sized, they couldn't hold near the amount of weight.

And so it was that the doctor crashed right through the table, splintering the poor thing as the wood paneling was no match for his bulk.

Both Nick and Honey waited with bated breath to see if the doctor would get up again but thankfully, after a few tense seconds have passed, the doctor still did not move, and they knew that it was safe.

"Oh my god, that was nerve-racking!" said Nick, letting out a huge sigh of relief. "What the hell happened, Honey?"

As Finnick came out of his hiding spot with a look of confusion on his muzzle, Honey pulled out a dripping syringe with a little bit of blue liquid left in it.

"Turns out I still had a spare elephant sedative. I just remembered it after you gave me that look." she said, smiling as she brandished the needle.

"Uh, Honey, you do realize this guy's not an elephant, right?" asked Finnick, giving the collapsed, but thankfully still alive hippo a kick in one of his legs.

"Well, he is just about as big."

"Not really." commented Nick, looking down at the mess that was the table. "I've had a few run-ins with the resident elephant cop at the precinct, and she was still at least a foot or so taller than this guy."

"Look, he'll be fine! The only time a sedative's dangerous is when it's administered to a mammal that's way smaller than what it was meant for."

"Whatever you say, Honey."

This comment earned Nick a glare from the badger, but thankfully she remained silent, choosing instead to walk over and reach down to grab the doctor.

"Help me turn him on his side. We're going to have to check his pockets for the key."

Both Nick and Finnick did as they were asked and joined Honey by the doctor's body.

Unfortunately, turning 400 pounds over was a difficult task, but thankfully doable. While they were working on it, though, Honey couldn't resist voicing something that came to her mind.

"You know, now that I think about it, it is possible that the hospital was smarter than we thought."

"How so?" grunted Nick.

"Well, if they sent one of the smaller mammals to Happytown, they were pretty much asking to be eaten, at least depending on who they were treating. With larger mammals, they can at least use their size to defend themselves."

"Why couldn't you have told us this before?" asked Finnick, the little guy straining as he pushed on the doctor's body. "You could have saved us so much trouble."

"Hey, I'd only just remembered about it myself!" she snapped. "Can you blame me for not thinking about that considering what we were dealing with?"

Even though Finnick knew that Honey did have a point, he remained silent, partly because he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she had something over him, but in reality it was mostly because he was already out of breath from flipping the doctor over.

Thankfully, even though most of the time was spent with Finnick griping about how heavy the doctor was, the three of them were able to lift him up on to his side, removing him from the debris of the patient table.

As Honey and Nick took care of holding the doctor up, Finnick went to work searching all of the pockets he could get to.

"Yes! I found the little sucker!" said Finnick with a shout of joy as he pulled the key out of one of the pockets in his lab coat.

As Honey and Nick carefully laid the doctor back on to the ground, Finnick stared at the key, picturing how it was going to feel to finally be free from his godforsaken collar after months of what felt like torture.

Unfortunately, though, his fantasies had to be put on hold for the moment, though, as before he could go to actually unlock it, the key was snatched out of his paws by Nick.

"Hey! I was about to use that!"

"Well, you were taking too long, Fin. We are kind of on a schedule, here."

Ignoring Fin's continued protests; Nick fit the surprisingly small key into the lock under the box which triggered the electric shocks. After spending a few moments jiggling the key around, he finally heard a satisfying click, and the collar slipped right off of his neck.

"Yesss…that feels so nice." said Nick, a smile on his muzzle as he registered the feeling of not having the restricting collar on his neck.

It even got to the point where he began slowly rubbing his neck, which he later would only admit was because he wanted to get the feeling back into his neck. In reality, though, he wanted more to savor the feeling, as there was the possibility of his time free being limited.

Being in the moment as he was, Nick was barely paying attention to what was going on around him, and it got to the point where even Honey was getting exasperated.

Walking over, she quickly nicked the key from Nick's paw and unlocked her collar, and while the feeling was something special to her, she held off on savoring it for the moment, instead handing the key back to Finnick, who unlocked his own collar.

"Oh man, this is something else." commented Finnick as he looked down at the floor where the collar now lied.

Honey couldn't help but agree with Finnick's sentiment, but there was something else on her mind…something devious.

"Hey, what do you think about destroying these things? You know, we do want to make sure that these remain in the annals of history where they belong."

Finnick paused, briefly considering Honey's suggestion. Personally, he wanted nothing more than to grind those things into dust, though, so it didn't take long to make a decision.

Unfortunately for him, though, the decision was taken out of his paws, as before he could actually say anything, Nick stepped in, snatching both of the collars before either of them could do anything.

"Hold up a second, you guys. I think I have an idea."

"An idea about what?" asked Finnick, annoyed that he was overridden so easily by the taller fox.

"I know you guys want to destroy these considering all they've done to you, but I think I know a better use for them. Heck, we could even get a nice measure of revenge on Bellwether and her cronies once we take back the city."

Finnick was about ready to argue against Nick's point, considering he was already thinking about finding a hammer to smash the collar, but Nick quickly went over to him, whispering the details of his idea into Finnick's ear after kneeling down to get on the same level as him.

Nick eventually stood back up, eagerly watching Finnick to see what he thought about his idea. The small fox didn't answer immediately, though, as he seemed to be tossing the idea around in his head, a mix of emotions crossing his muzzle as he debated whether this was worth keeping his collar in one piece.

"You know, you're way too devious for your own good. I don't know what I did to end up being stuck with you all these years."

"So, is that a yes?"

"Yeah, it is. I hope you have something in mind to replace the collar, though. I'm itching to release all of this pent up aggression I've been forced to stamp down since we were forced to wear those."

Finnick accentuated his statement with a dark glare towards the collars in Nick's paw.

"I'll find something for you. Now come on, we need to get this guy tied up and in the closet soon." said Nick. "By the way, do you know how long this guy's going to be knocked out for, Honey?"

"Hey, I'm not answering anything until you tell me what this plan of yours is. I don't appreciate being left out of the loop on things like this."

Nick was thankfully only slightly annoyed at being given this prerequisite (despite not having a whole lot of time to mess around). Still, he reluctantly walked over, whispering the plan into Honey's ear just as he did for Finnick.

"Ooh, Bellwether's gonna be pissed." she said, an eager tone in her voice.

"That's the idea. I'm hoping that they'll let it stay once she ends up in jail, but if it doesn't it's not a big deal. I'll be satisfied either way."

"Fair enough."

As the three of them got to work tying the doctor's limbs up with the rope and reinforcing the knot with tape, Honey quickly did some calculations in her head, eventually coming up with a rough estimate for how much time they had to work with.

"I'd say you guys have maybe around seven hours."

"And where did that number come from?" asked Nick as they worked on dragging the doctor's huge body into the nearby closet.

"Well, with the difference in sizes between him and an actual elephant, combined with the fact that I used almost all of the stuff I had left, he's probably going to be out for a while. I figured it'd probably be about five or six hours, give or take."

"That doesn't explain why there's a seventh hour, though."

"That's roughly how long it's going to take him to get out of the closet and back to the hospital. He may be a jovial fellow, but hippos can really throw their weight around."

Both Nick and Finnick fell silent, trading nervous looks at each other.

Eventually, though, the three of them managed to pull the doctor into the closet. After using the last of the tape to cover the hippo's mouth, they finally shut the door behind them as Nick and Finnick turned to face Honey.

"Well, we'd better get going. Carrots is probably worried sick about us."

"Who's Carrots?" asked Honey.

"A friend of ours. Listen, we appreciate all the help that you've given us. We'll be putting this key to good use." said Finnick, patting the pocket where he'd stored the key after unlocking his collar.

"Hey, shouldn't you maybe be cleaning yourself off? That blood may be fake, but I'm pretty sure it'd still freak someone out if you're running around looking like you've been through a meat grinder."

Nick opened his muzzle to deliver one of his usual snarky replies, but after a few seconds he glanced down and realized that he was indeed still covered in fake blood, dirt and other messes.

"Huh, I completely forgot about this. Hey, do you happen to have a shower I could borrow?"

"Not here. I do have one in my apartment, though."

"Great! Lead the way."

As Honey led Nick and Finnick out of the clinic and towards her apartment, Nick couldn't help but smile, knowing that their plan was going swimmingly so far despite the small deviations from the expected course.

Still, he knew better than to expect everything else would go well. He'd had way too much experience with things going sideways recently to think any differently.

* * *

 **Just to clarify before I go, I have done research into what a hippo's feet were considered as and came up with hooves. However, since hippos in Zootopia are obviously different when it comes to how they have actual hands (just look at Officer Higgins), I decided to refer to them as hands. It's not really the best description for them, but I needed something to go on.**


	23. Chapter 23

Even though most of the action was happening at the clinic, that wasn't the only place where Nick and Judy's plan to overthrow Bellwether was being enacted.

Back at Eric's apartment, the otter was putting together the fake collars with Judy, a pile of leather and plastic boxes sitting beside them, with some glue they managed to luckily borrow from Clawhauser also on the table nearby. The other two items were also relatively easy to come by as well, as there just happened to be a craft shop just outside of Mr. Big's territory that they were able to purchase some.

Unfortunately, though, with the repetitive nature of the task set before them, they were both beginning to get incredibly bored as time went on. However, with them being the smallest mammals not already involved with other tasks, they didn't really have a choice considering none of the others had the dexterity to handle putting together the variously sized collars.

And so it went, with the two of them cutting strips of leather, gluing the boxes to the leather and repeating ad nauseam.

"So, uh…how many of these are we supposed to make again?" asked Judy, her back starting to become sore thanks to not moving from her hunched position for the last hour.

Eric sighed heavily, setting the collar he was working on down on the table before speaking.

"I've already told you this twice. I don't know how many we need. It all depends on how many predators Elliot and the others can convince to help us out."

"So, basically we're just trying to make as many as we can, right?"

"Something like that. I want to have some extras just in case. Plus, it's good to overestimate if we get more mammals to come than we expect."

"Okay, I see your point. Can we just talk about something, though? All this silence is starting to get to me."

"Well, I'd really prefer to concentrate. We can't really screw these up. Otherwise the ZPD'll catch on." he said, gesturing with a paw towards the decent-sized pile of fake collars near them.

"Can we at least turn the TV on? I could really use at least some background noise."

"Alright, fine. Just keep it down low, okay?"

The former rabbit officer was more than happy to comply with Eric's request, mostly because she just wanted a break from the tense atmosphere of the past couple of days.

Hopping down from her seat, Judy walked over to where the TV set still was, turning it on and cranking the volume down to where she felt it would be low enough to where she'd be able to hear without annoying the otter in the room with him.

Surprisingly, the news was on again, which puzzled Judy for a moment before she remembered that no one had really touched the TV since the last time they'd actually seen the news.

She briefly studied the screen, considering whether or not to keep it on this channel and head back over to the table to continue working on the collars.

However, once she noticed the first signs of their escape from prison popping up on the screen again, she quickly changed the channel, not wanting to be reminded of what had happened that day.

After spending a few minutes flipping through channels, she finally decided that it wasn't worth it to find anything good, especially considering the limited amount of channels that the set had.

So, after coming to a stop on a music channel, Judy tweaked the volume just a bit before returning to her seat.

However, just as she was about to cut another strip of leather out of the pile, her thoughts shifted to what was going on outside of their own little bubble.

With her former coworkers, she didn't have much to worry about. Sure, there was the fact that they had to be extremely careful not to look suspicious going around trying to convince the other predators to help with their plan, but she was relatively confident that they would be able to take care of themselves.

What she was more worried about, though, was Nick and Finnick. From the way they were talking before they left (Nick especially), it felt like they would be there and back in no time at all. However, it has been at least a few hours since they left, and while she did realize that driving time would have to be taken into effect, way too much time has passed for her liking, and she was beginning to get worried.

Unfortunately, her expression had apparently caught Eric's attention, as he'd already started speaking before she could tell herself to stop worrying about them.

"You alright, Judy?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?" she asked, adopting a blank look on her face.

She had hoped that her quick change in expression would convince him, but being the experienced thief that he was, he saw right through her.

"Is this about Nick and Fin?"

"Yeah, it is." she said, looking at the floor.

"Look…they're going to be fine. I've known those two for years. They've always managed to find a way out of trouble when they work together."

Judy still didn't look entirely convinced, but the subtle change in her expression told Eric that he at least managed to get through to her, despite how weak he felt his justification was.

Satisfied, Eric returned to work on his collars, glancing at Judy every so often until she returned to work as well.

* * *

Another hour passed with no sign of the two foxes, and Judy was trying her hardest to keep that fact out of her mind. Unfortunately, they had just run out of materials not too long ago, and the two of them had agreed that they had made more than enough fake collars.

Thankfully, she didn't have much time to stew, as Wolford and the others had finally returned, squeezing their way into the room to share their progress.

"So, how'd it go?" asked Eric, looking expectantly at the four larger mammals in front of him.

"Shockingly well, actually." said Delgato. "Each of us took a section of Happytown and went door to door. Not everyone wanted to come along, but we managed to convince a pretty decent amount of mammals to help us out."

"How many are we talking about?" asked Judy, stepping forwards.

"I got about thirty. I was kind of surprised how eager some of them were."

"I got you beat, Sam." said Snarlof. "I managed to get forty of them."

"This isn't a competition, you guys." chided Wolford. "This is for saving the city."

"Oh yeah? How many did you get, Elliot?" asked Delgato.

At this, Wolford's ears quickly folded back, the timber wolf looking embarrassed as he tried to look away from the others.

"Fifteen." he said quietly.

"Hah! Man, that is kind of weak."

"Leave him alone, Sam." said Grizzoli. "Fifteen's better than nothing."

"Hey, it was all in good fun! Don't blame me if you guys can't take a joke."

"Getting back to business here…" interrupted Grizzoli. "I managed to get forty as well, so that brings us to an even one hundred and twenty five mammals. Do you think that'll be enough?"

"Oh, I think that'll be more than enough." said Eric, a smile on his muzzle as he realized what they had at their beck and call. "We made around a hundred and forty fake collars, so we're going to have at least a few extras to work with."

At this comment, the four larger mammals made their way over to the pile where the fake collars were. Wolford picked one out of the pile and held it up in front of his muzzle, studying it closely.

"Looks pretty decent. You sure these are going to fit us all?"

"Judy and I had to estimate the length on most of them. We'll try our best to get them ones that fit, but some of them might have to deal with ones that are a little tight or loose."

"What about the design, though?" asked Grizzoli as he studied one he had between his claws. "I don't think it's going to stand up to inspection."

"We're not going to let it get that far, Frank. We didn't really have the supplies to make it look exactly like the original, so we had to do the best we could."

"Yeah, all we're trying to do is make it look convincing enough from a distance so they don't immediately realize something was up." said Judy.

"Well, I suppose that's the best way we're going to go about things." said Snarlof, shrugging before trying some of the collars on to see what would best fit him.

Unfortunately, with them still having their actual collars still on, finding one that fit well proved to be a bit of a challenge for the larger mammals.

Thankfully, as if to answer that problem, the front door opened. There was a moment of panic as everyone's heads whipped towards said door, but their worries were abated when it turned out to be Nick and Finnick, the latter repeatedly tossing what turned out to be the collar key into the air before catching it in his outstretched paw, almost like a baseball.

The room was silent for a few moments, as Judy, Eric and the ex-ZPD mammals were too surprised by the entrance of the two foxes to say anything.

However, just as Nick was about to say something snarky in an attempt to defuse the awkwardness of the situation, he was quickly knocked to the ground by a grey blur, whimpering a bit as he accidentally landed on his ribs.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry!" said Judy, quickly detaching herself from Nick's waist, where she had latched on to moments ago. "I was just so worried that something happened to you that I forgot about the ribs."

"Well, it's good to see that you at least care about me, Carrots." grunted Nick as he pulled himself up off of the floor.

It was while Nick was busy brushing himself off that Judy noticed some remnants of the blood and dirt that was still caked into his fur. She could even see a few splotches of blood on his bandaged chest as well.

"What the heck happened to you, Nick?"

"Oh, this?" he asked, pointing towards his body. "This is all fake. Fin had some supplies stashed here that we used to make me look worse than I am."

"I can see that. You didn't answer my question, though. What took you guys so long?"

"Right…that. We, uh…ran into a bit of a problem getting the key." said Nick, nervously scratching the back of his neck.

"Turns out we ended up getting a hippo doctor." commented Finnick.

"The good news is that Honey saved our asses by sedating the doctor. Bad news is that we only have about four hours until he wakes up and rats us out to the hospital."

"And why didn't you come back here immediately after you got the key?"

"I had to wash everything off. Thankfully, Honey had a shower."

"Showers don't usually take that long, Nick."

"It turns out that fake blood and eye makeup is really tough to wash out, Fluff. Honey was kind of pissed, but I rushed out as soon as I got most of it out."

"Alright, I understand." said Judy, attempting to avoid causing a scene. "I was just really worried that something happened."

"Well, this does leave us in a bit of a bind, though." said Eric. "We've only got four hours to get all of the predators together, get their collars off and fitted with the fake ones, and move on City Hall."

"Oh, speaking of, how did that go?" asked Nick.

"We got over a hundred, but that's not really the point. Fitting everyone for a fake collar is going to take time. Time we don't have much of."

"Well then, we're just going to have to start right away. Easy enough."

It seemed at this point that Eric was probably never going to get through to Nick about how bad of a situation they were in with his delay, so after a few seconds spent fuming, Eric sighed before deciding it was best to move on.

"Give me the key. I'm itching to get this damn thing off."

Finnick quickly tossed the key towards Eric, the otter catching it before fitting it in his collar. Once he heard the click go off, he immediately pulled it off before tossing it on the floor.

As Eric handed off the key to Wolford, he reached down, intending to destroy it. Before he could do so, though, Nick quickly held out a paw, placing it on top of Eric's as he made to stop him.

"Hold on a second, Eric."

At a questioning look from the otter, Nick kneeled down, whispering his plan into Eric's ear.

Thankfully, judging from the look on Eric's muzzle, he seemed to be more than willing to go along with Nick's plan, as his paw relaxed, allowing the fox to grab the collar from him.

Nick spent the next minute or so sharing the plan with all of the other predators in the room, collecting their collars so that he could set them aside for use later. Unfortunately, this also caught Judy's attention, and she couldn't help but wonder what the fox's deal was.

"Hey Nick, what are you planning to do with those?"

"All in due time, Carrots. All in due time."

Nick was prepared to simply leave it at that, but after an annoyed look from the rabbit in front of him, he decided it was probably best to elaborate just a little bit to avoid spoiling his plan.

"I want it to be a surprise. Can you blame me for wanting to have a little fun sometimes?"

Judy was admittedly a little disappointed that she was the only one being kept out of the plan, but she knew Nick too well to think that she'd be able to get the answer out of him easily.

Sighing, she threw up her paws in defeat, deciding it was best not to worry about that fact when they have something so much more important ahead of them.

Thankfully, by the time the two of them were finished speaking, the others had already managed to find a fake collar that fit them, and while none of them were all that happy to have to wear another collar so soon after getting their original ones off, they knew that they all had to simply endure it for the sake of the plan.

So, once all of the predators in the room were outfitted with their fake collars, including Nick, the rest of the fake collars were stored in a spare box as Grizzoli took care of lugging it around.

"Ready to go?" asked Judy, looking around at the others as she took the lead heading towards the door.

Everyone silently nodded, each of the mammals having their game faces on as they prepared for the task ahead of them.

Satisfied, Judy hopped up, opening the door in front of her as she led everyone out of the building, ready to finally retake City Hall and get their city back.


	24. Chapter 24

The journey out of Happytown was done in almost complete silence. Nobody in the group wanted to say anything to ruin the seriousness of the moment.

Even as the numbers grew, the only words shared between the predators were questions about the suddenness of their march to City Hall. They had only just agreed to help not too long ago, so hearing that they were attacking now came as a surprise to most of them.

Still, they had already told the ex-ZPD cops that they were willing to help, so after arming themselves with whatever they could find (which included bats, boards and other blunt objects), their actual collars were replaced with the fake collars that Judy and Eric made.

Unfortunately, just as predicted, not all of the collars fit correctly. Even with the extras available, there were a few that had to work around the loose fit of their collars.

There were a few preds, though, that were too big for any of the collars available, so while there a few moments of panic as they tried to figure out what to do, Judy and Nick put their heads together and decided that the best option was for them to stay at the back of the group.

Once the fake collar situation was dealt with, they were back on the move, now one hundred and thirty three mammals stronger. Unfortunately, Wolford, Snarlof, Grizzoli and Delgato were still the only ex-officers part of the uprising.

It did end up making things a little more worrisome in Judy's mind, considering there was a way too low percentage of mammals that she knew were capable of self-defense outside of herself. The only real thing she could rely upon to be sure that the plan wouldn't completely go off the rails if the element of surprise, and even that was up in the air considering how smart Bellwether was.

Still, it was too late for them to turn back, though, so after making an effort to banish those thoughts from her mind, she returned her focus to the road in front of her, continuing to lead the way as the predator uprising came up to the boundary between Happytown and Savannah Central.

* * *

As the predators and Judy made their way through town to City Hall, they passed by a still surprisingly large amount of prey animals going about their business.

Predictably, most of the prey bolted upon seeing the large number of predators marching through the streets, ducking for cover as the intimidating presence no doubt gave them all warning signs that something was about to go down.

Not everyone was too frightened to run, though. Even through the bustling noise of everything going on around them, Judy could hear some species-based epithets being thrown around by some of the larger prey animals on the streets.

Those who noticed Judy's presence among them even had some words to say about her as well, although the word that she heard most often was "predophiliac".

Now, to be fair, she was probably one of the few mammals that actually still associated with predators, especially in this climate, but hearing the derogatory term being thrown around still stung.

She did her best to ignore the taunts, though, staring straight in front of her as she continued leading the pack forwards.

Eventually, the pred army came up on the main square, and soon after City Hall, only to be met by a large contingent of ZPD officers in riot gear.

After coming to a stop down the street from the officers, Nick and Judy traded looks, slightly surprised that they managed to mobilize so quickly. Still, to be fair, there was a good chance at least one of the prey animals called the police while they were making their way into the square.

The officers and predators stood off for the next few minutes, both sides waiting for the other to make a move.

Eventually, one of the officers in front of the phalanx grabbed a bullhorn, holding it up to his mouth as he shouted out orders.

"All predators need to disperse immediately, or we will trigger your collars!"

Most of the officers in front pulled out collar remotes to accentuate the bullhorn officer's threat, their fingers hovering over the button as they prepared to follow through.

Unfortunately for them, they were too far away from the predators to notice the fact that what they were wearing was completely fake, which was just as Judy and the others were hoping would happen.

With a surprisingly evil smirk on her face, Judy gestured towards Nick, signaling for him to lead the way as he had a better chance of being seen by all of the taller mammals.

Luckily, Nick got the message relatively easily.

Taking a few steps forwards, Nick stood in front of everyone, holding his arms wide as he looked towards the officers, almost as if he was daring them to attack.

"Come and get us!" he yelled, refusing to back down in the face of all of the remotes and other assorted weapons that the officers carried.

Judy knew that the ZPD was smarter than that, though. While she wished that Nick would have been a little less brazen in his goading of the officers, she could tell from their expressions that at least a few of them were annoyed that the predators weren't following orders.

"This is your final warning! Disperse now, or we will trigger the collars!" said the bullhorn officer, his voice surprisingly much louder than his initial warning.

Rolling his eyes exaggeratedly, Nick turned his head back towards the predators behind him, throwing his arm towards them before swinging it back towards the officers, gesturing for them to start moving.

With the last warning going unheeded, the officer with the bullhorn signaled for the others to hit their buttons, which they did, pressing down hard with their claw-tipped fingers.

Unfortunately, to the officers' shock, nothing happened when the buttons were triggered. A few of them even attempted to hit the button multiple times, thinking that their triggers were somehow faulty.

By the time they even realized that something was wrong, the cops were already on the defensive, as the predators descended upon them, using their weapons and their own fists to beat back the tide of cops.

It was complete chaos within the main square as the predators and officers went at it. The predators thankfully managed to outnumber the officers, but it was only by a few, as Judy and the others were in fact the difference maker.

As Judy took on a ram officer, dodging around the large shield and knocking him off balance with a kick from her powerful legs, she soon realized that fact herself.

She could see that only a few of the officers were being double-teamed, so she knew that they needed to time their break for City Hall well, especially if Bellwether decides to send out the Razorbacks.

After mentally debating her best course of action, she decided that earlier was probably better, mostly so that they didn't give Bellwether or the ZPD a chance to regroup and beat them back.

Judy was still in midair when she came to that decision, so after hitting the ground, she quickly shifted her weight, launching her form towards the officer and connecting with a cracking head butt on the ram's chin.

This sent the ram down to the ground, and while it didn't actually knock him out, it gave Judy a chance to escape.

Thankfully, with her small stature, she was easily able to slip through the chaos, helping Nick, Finnick, and Eric take care of their own officers so that they were free to join her in the break in.

"Come on, let's get in there before she sends the Razorbacks out!" she shouted, barely able to be heard over the noise.

"Wait, wasn't it good for them to come out here?" yelled Finnick.

"Not when we're barely outnumbering the ZPD! If she sends them out, and we're still inside, we're done for!"

Both Finnick and Nick glanced back and saw that Judy was indeed right. With the absence of the four of them, the officers were starting to slowly gain back ground from the predators. They knew that they didn't have much time to get the briefcase out, and it was going to be much less once the Razorbacks were sent in.

Nick led the way as the four mammals made their way towards City Hall, ready to simply rush their way in and take the briefcase while everyone's distracted.

Unfortunately, this also allowed Judy to notice the fact that Nick was once again favoring his side.

This worried Judy a bit, as she was sure that he'd reinjured his ribs fighting, either by moving his body wrong or by getting hit in them by one of the officers.

As much as she wanted to try and help him out, though, they had almost no time to screw around, so she was regretfully forced to abandon her worries and hope that this wouldn't slow Nick down.

So, with a heavy sigh, she followed Nick as the four of them slipped through the door and into City Hall.

* * *

With the chaos going on outside, the lobby was surprisingly empty.

"Where is everyone?" asked Finnick as the four of them searched around the room for any sign of life.

"They probably ran once the rioting started." said Eric. "Frankly, I wouldn't blame them. Most of the mammals who work here are about half the size of the predators we've got."

"Look, let's just take this as a good sign and get moving." said Nick, still clutching at his side in an attempt to relieve the pain he was going through. "Bellwether might still have the briefcase inside that safe in her office."

"Are you sure?" asked Judy. "I'm pretty sure she remembers us attempting to break into that safe."

"Well, even so, I suggest that we go there first. I do want to leave all of our options open."

"Sounds fair to me. Let's go."

Judy's head turned towards Finnick, who was the one who'd last spoken, mostly in an attempt to keep the four of them moving.

She stared at Finnick in confusion for a few moments, but thankfully she agreed that this was the best course of action.

The four of them began walking through the hallways of City Hall, Judy taking the lead as they made their way to Bellwether's office.

Despite the different method that they were taking to said office, it was beginning to feel eerily familiar to Judy, as she remembered them sneaking their way through the hallways last time they were here.

Their break-in was at least a month or so ago, but it felt like yesterday to the young rabbit. She silently hoped that this time would be different. Otherwise, they had no chance.

As they wove their way through the hallways, though, it was starting to become increasingly clear that this break-in was in fact much different compared to the last one, as the hallways were much emptier. The only thing they really needed to worry about was the cameras, and even then they weren't that hard to deal with, as most of the ones they saw had a clear blind spot directly under them.

"I don't like this. This feels way too easy." commented Eric.

"Please don't remind me." said Nick.

"Keep moving." said Finnick, looking to shut down the conversation before doubts started to creep in to the others.

Unfortunately for Finnick, it wasn't going to be all that easy, as the similarities to their last break-in were very much apparent. Sure, most of the guards were probably outside dealing with the riots, but it didn't mean much in her mind considering how Bellwether usually acts.

Once again, though, this was the difference between saving the city and living in a police state, so everyone quickly quashed their worries before moving on, slipping through another doorway before reaching the entrance to the mayor's office.

Before they actually went through the door, though, the four of them came to a stop , pressing their bodies against the walls around the doorframe, looking at each other as they mentally prepared for what they were about to do.

"You guys ready to go?" asked Judy, staring at Nick and Finnick as Eric sat behind her.

"What are we going to do if Bellwether's in there?" asked Nick. "If she hadn't already sent the Razorbacks out, they're probably in there with her."

"Well, we already know that they exist, so we're going to be prepared this time." said Judy, a confident look on her face.

"You know, we can lead them out into the crowds, too." commented Finnick. "Even if they are as badass as they are, they can't take on a hundred pissed off predators."

"That's true." mused Nick. "I say we use that as a last resort."

"Agreed." said Eric. "The numbers game can really help us out."

"Alright."

After Judy's agreement, the four of them immediately tensed, waiting for a few seconds before opening the door and making their way into Bellwether's office.

Just like last time, though, the office was empty, with the mayor's desk the only real thing on the floor of note outside of some chairs.

This time, Judy and the others were more cautious. Before they went for the safe behind the picture frame, they quickly scanned through the room, making sure that they weren't going to be ambushed before they were ready.

Thankfully, outside of a bed of TV sets, which after a closer look from Judy revealed that they were part of the security system, there was almost nothing out of place. It almost looked like a normal mayor's office, the only thing weird being the sinister atmosphere that pervaded through the place.

Even after finding nothing, Eric didn't immediately go for the safe. Freezing in place, he waited along with the others for anyone to jump out, but it didn't take long before they realized that they were alone.

"Go for the safe, Eric." said Judy. "Don't take too long, though. We need to get out of here."

"Don't worry about it, Judy." said Eric. "I've already figured out two of the numbers, and that safe's one of those ones that can't be changed once the combination's been put in the first time."

"That's good. This should help us."

Nodding, Eric headed over to the safe, spinning the dials as he entered the first two numbers. Once the dial came to a stop on the second number, though, he quickly slowed his movements down, pressing his earhole against the cool metal as he began listening for the gears to release.

As the otter worked on the safe, the other three stood guard, waiting for Bellwether or the Razorbacks to pop out and attack.

Eerily, though, the door remained closed, the only real noise outside of the rioting going on outside being the gears turning inside the safe.

"Yes, I got it!"

Whipping her head around, Judy watched as Eric opened the safe, a surprised look on her face as she watched him pull out the briefcase that she clearly recognized as containing the gun and Night Howler pellets.

There was a flash of a memory in her mind as she remembered the frankly terrifying moments inside the natural history museum, but she quickly shook out those thoughts as she focused on the task ahead.

"Nick, you're the tallest out of all of us. You're going to have to carry the case."

She quickly regretted her choice, considering how injured Nick was, but in reality this was her only choice, as any of the others including her wouldn't be able to carry the case without it dragging on the ground.

After handing the case over to Nick, Eric took the lead as he led them out of the office and through the hallways.

That part of the journey turned out to be relatively quick, but as they reached the lobby and near freedom, they were stopped as the evil sheep stood between them and the front door, flanked by the Razorbacks.

Freezing, Judy could only watch as she stepped forwards, an evil smile on her face as she said one thing.

"Hello again…Judy."


	25. Chapter 25

"Hello, Smellwether. Glad to see you're still as smug as ever."

Even though Judy was barely holding her composure, considering they were only feet away from escaping, she still managed to affix the mad sheep with the most hateful glare she could muster.

Unfortunately for her, Bellwether appeared to be unaffected by either insult, as she simply chuckled, folding her arms as she watched the group in front of her.

"Real original, Judy. Using Lionheart's old nickname for me sure hits me so hard." she said sarcastically, pointing towards her heart as she spoke.

"Oh, really? I'm surprised that you even have a heart to break."

Bellwether chose not to dignify that insult with an answer, instead changing the subject as she clapped her hooves together.

"Now, I'm sure you all know why I'm here."

Holding out her hoof, Bellwether's glare darkened as she spoke her next words with a menacing tone.

"Hand over the case, now."

"How about you go choke on a Night Howler, lady? I'm sure you'll get an idea of what the predators that you darted had to go through." said Finnick, affixing Bellwether with his own glare as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Instead of answering immediately, Bellwether walked forwards, stopping a few inches in front of Finnick as she stared down the fennec. Finnick barely had any time to question what she was doing before he was on the ground, the wind knocked out of him after a surprisingly vicious punch to the gut from the sheep mayor.

"Fin!" shouted Judy.

She quickly rushed over to the downed fox, slowly helping him back to his feet, Finnick coughing as he attempted to breathe again.

"There, that should show you that I'm not screwing around. Now, is there anyone else that would like to play hero?" asked Bellwether, a wicked smile on her face as she watched the scene in front of her.

Nobody gave her an answer, but Bellwether frankly wasn't expecting one considering what she did. Still, she really wanted to drive her point across as clearly as possible, so after taking their silence as their answer, she snapped her hooves together.

At first, the group was unsure of what the snapping noise entailed, but their questions were answered when the Razorbacks reached behind their backs, retrieving rifles for each of them as they pointed them at the heroes in front of them.

"Whoa, wait! What are you doing?" asked Judy, panicking as soon as she realized that the weapons they were holding were very real.

"Eliminating you all from the equation. You see, I could just send you back to prison, but I think it's easier just to kill you. Besides, the Devil's Backbone is full again, and I don't want to risk giving you the time."

Bellwether almost looked disappointed after that last sentence, but her look quickly changed into one of manic glee as she turned back towards her bodyguards.

However, before she could actually give them the signal to start firing, she was once again interrupted by Judy, who was making every attempt to delay the inevitable as she tried to think of a way to get out of this mess.

"Wait!"

"God, you're infuriating." said Bellwether with a heavy sigh. "What do you want?"

"How did you even get all of these weapons? I thought Zootopia banned them years ago."

Bellwether briefly considered just refusing to answer Judy's question, but after a few seconds of thought, she realized that the rabbit was going to be dead soon, so there was no real reason not to hide it, especially with the anything that could record her speech.

Unfortunately, she couldn't have predicted another method outside of her control, as when Nick glanced over towards Finnick to check to make sure if he was okay, he spotted the bright orange color of her infamous carrot pen clutched inside the paw that was against Finnick's back, finger on the record button.

"You sly bunny." thought Nick, impressed by Judy's quick thinking.

Luckily, Bellwether was none the wiser thanks to the fox being a professional at hiding his emotions, the mask still very much on his muzzle as he stared straight ahead at the mad sheep.

As for Bellwether herself, she hemmed and hawed for a few more moments debating whether she was even making the right decision in choosing to answer Judy's question. Thankfully, it didn't take much longer though before she turned to face everyone, eager to finally speak once more.

"Well, I like to think the answer's pretty obvious, right? You can do anything you want when you're the mayor…even get weapons shipped into the city thanks to a Russian drug cartel that just so happens to owe you a boatload of favors."

"Wait, you're involved with Russians?!" asked Judy, baffled by Bellwether's admission.

"Of course! When you're as desperate for power as I was, you'd resort to anything to get your way. Besides, all of the other organizations I worked with wanted too much money."

"Wow…you are revolting." commented Nick, giving Bellwether a disgusted look.

"Why thank you." said Bellwether. "Now, to business."

Turning off to the side, Bellwether started walking, moving out of the path of the four of them before coming to a stop after getting a safe distance away.

"Kill them."

The four Razorbacks quickly lifted their rifles, aiming them right at the faces of the four mammals in front of them.

Having no real way to escape, the four of them prepared themselves for their inevitable deaths, covering their faces as they didn't want to watch what would happen next.

However, before the warthogs could pull the trigger, they were forced to stop when a voice spoke out.

"Wait."

Confused, the warthogs lowered their weapons, wondering what Bellwether was stopping them for.

As for the sheep herself, she was busy staring hatefully at Nick, the fox lifting the briefcase in front of his muzzle for protection.

"One of you." she said, snapping her hooves as she gestured towards the Razorbacks. "Relieve Mr. Wilde of my briefcase before his stupidity damages the contents inside. Feel free to be as rough as you want."

The Razorback on the far right did as Bellwether asked, storing his rifle on his back before stepping forwards, making his way towards the fox as Nick thought quickly of a way to prevent the briefcase from being removed from his possession.

Thankfully an idea came once he realized that none of them were wearing helmets, and in a move that would have been boneheaded if they weren't so desperate, Nick swung the briefcase as hard as he could, aiming upwards as he tried to clock the Razorback in the head.

Luckily, the warthog wasn't prepared for this kind of attack, and he took the full force of a metal object in the face, swinging a full one hundred and eighty degrees before finally dropping to the ground.

Rushing forwards, Nick quickly grabbed the rifle off of the downed Razorback, pointing it towards Bellwether and the other three still conscious warthogs.

"Nobody move and no one gets hurt!"

Despite being in a severe amount of pain and also with the gun being meant for mammals double his size, Nick's frantic tone surprisingly helped him stay alive for a little bit longer, as the other Razorbacks held off on firing thanks to their downed brother being in the line of fire.

Unfortunately, this did not make Bellwether happy. Fuming, she watched as the Razorbacks continued to point their guns at the heroes while at the same time refusing to fire.

"What are you all doing? Shoot them!"

Even with her enraged tone, the warthogs still refused to fire and Nick, sensing an opportunity, hefted the still woozy Razorback on to his haunches, hiding behind the large mammal as a proverbial shield as he desperately tried to handle both the warthog's considerable heft and the too large gun in his paws.

Needless to say, this was something that Bellwether wasn't going to stand for.

So, in an attempt to get her plan moving, Bellwether stomped over to the Razorback nearest her, swiping a pistol from his holster before she quickly fired, catching the downed Razorback right between the eyes as it killed him instantly.

Thankfully, the bullet narrowly missed Nick's head, almost clipping one of his ears. Still, though, he did end up getting a face full of blood, which completely caught the normally quick witted fox off guard.

"There! Now that he's dealt with, would you mind shooting all of them already?!" said Bellwether, angrily pointing towards the still stunned heroes as her voice rose up to a shout thanks to how annoyed she was getting.

To her surprise, though, instead of following her directions and firing, the three remaining Razorbacks rounded on her, staring her down as the two on the far end formed a line facing the evil sheep.

There were a few moments of confusion as Judy and the others watched what the Razorbacks were going to do. Even Bellwether was stunned, wondering just what was going on to make them act this way.

Their questions were answered when all three of the warthogs dropped their guns on to the floor, unclipping everything from their backs and belts as they left everything in one giant pile in front of them.

"Wait, what are you doing?" asked Bellwether, stunned as she watched the display.

"Quitting." said the warthog in the middle, which Judy assumed must have been the leader judging by his large size.

"Quitting?"

Bellwether barely had any time to register the word before the remaining Razorbacks starting walking towards the front door, intending to leave her behind.

"Wait! You can't do this to me!" she yelled, rushing after them.

"We can and we have!" said the leader, whirling around to address the sheep mayor. "No one, and I mean no one kills our brother and gets away with it."

The warthog's menacing tone caught Bellwether off guard for a moment, her instincts peeking through a bit as she stepped back. However, she was quickly able to quash them down as she rose to her full height, trying her best to look intimidating despite being a quarter of their size.

"Then why don't you just kill me then, huh? I thought you just said no one gets away with something like what I just did."

The warthog simply scoffed, unimpressed by Bellwether's display of bravado.

"We're bodyguards, not assassins. Besides, we're more than happy to see you rot in prison once these guys arrest your fuzzy butt."

The leader quickly gestured towards the still very much puzzled heroes as the other two Razorbacks around him nodded in agreement with the leader's sentiment.

Ignoring Bellwether's continued pleas and threats, the three remaining Razorbacks left the room after picking up their fallen brother, two of them carrying the load between them, leaving a stunned sheep alone in the room with the four heroes.

Paralyzed after realizing just how screwed she was, Bellwether whipped her head back and forth between the heroes and the front door, taking the few moments she had to decide what her best course of action was.

Unfortunately for her, with how much her world was crumbling in front of her, she clearly wasn't thinking straight.

In a fit of madness, Bellwether rushed towards the pile of guns, intending to do the job she tasked the Razorbacks with herself.

However, with three out of the four of them downed for one reason or another, it was left to Eric to prevent Bellwether from making it to the pile, and prevent her he did.

Dodging around the mess of bodies in front of him, Eric went down on all fours, rushing forwards as fast as he could towards the pile of guns in an attempt to beat Bellwether to it.

It was definitely a close call, but Eric managed to make it with only a second to spare, cutting off Bellwether's route as he threw all of his weight in to her, sending the sheep flying into the nearby reception desk.

The room fell silent once more after the crash of sheep hitting wood, the silence even coming from the outside as well, giving the four of them a clue that the battle raging out there was now over.

As much as they wanted to see what happened outside (considering their worry for the safety of the other predators), what was happening inside was way more important to them.

So, after the three of them stepped forwards to rejoin Eric, with Judy helping Nick walk thanks to the massive amount of pain he was in, Bellwether's eyes opened once more, widening in surprise before they darkened into another glare.

"So what are you going to do to me, huh? Kill me? I'm sure you'd like to do that just so you can get me out of your fur for good, right?"

Judy had no intention of admitting it to anyone, but she had briefly considered following through with Bellwether's suggestion. With how badly the sheep managed to screw up her life, she could imagine there would be quite a few people who'd want to get at least an ounce of revenge.

Still, even though she technically wasn't an officer, her morals still won out easily, especially since she'd learn from others' experiences that you'd barely get any self-gratification from committing murder as an act of revenge.

So, instead of going over to grab a gun, Judy instead kneeled down so that the two were eye to eye.

"I'm not going to kill you, Dawn." she said, emphasizing her point by referring to the sheep by her first name. "I'm going to expose everything you've ever done to destroy this city.

"What…with that briefcase?" asked Bellwether, pointing towards the now dented case sitting nearby. "I'd be surprised if the contents inside weren't mush after that idiotic thing that fox did."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that, soon-to-be ex-mayor Bellwether." said Judy in an almost sing-song manner.

"And why's that?"

"Because I've got a backup plan."

Without waiting for a query from the sheep about the nature of her plan, Judy whipped out the carrot pen, hitting the play button as Bellwether's confession about her involvement with the illegal arms trade broadcasted throughout the room, leaving the sheep herself stunned.

"W-wait, I thought that pen was destroyed!" she said frantically.

"Oh, it was. This is a new one. I found a pretty nice store that sells them at a good price."

Bellwether knew that she was done at this point, so despite every fiber of her being screaming at her to run and go into hiding, she didn't move, watching as Judy walked over to the receptionist's desk, hopping up on top before grabbing the receiver of the phone.

"Hi, Chief Bogo? It's Officer Hopps." said Judy after the dial tone stopped, immediately pulling the receiver away from her ear as the buffalo started yelling.

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry for disappearing like I did…and getting a lot of your officers hurt…but seriously, I've got Mayor Bellwether here, and I've got some pretty concrete evidence that she's been up to some shady business. Honestly, you really have to see this."

Judy once again fell silent, listening as Chief Bogo continued speaking on the other end of the line.

"Thank you, sir. We'll keep an eye on her."

After hanging up the phone, Judy hopped down from the desk before addressing the others.

"The ZPD'll be here in about fifteen minutes. Our riots kind of slowed them down a bit."

Judy was fully expecting the four of them to show that they understood, but dissension ended up coming from an unexpected source.

"The ZPD? Are you serious?"

"Yeah, why?" she asked Eric, who was the one who spoke up.

"I really need to go, now!"


	26. Chapter 26

"Go?" asked Judy. "Wait, what are you talking about? We just saved the city!"

Judy couldn't help but feel giddy once the realization hit that they've beaten Bellwether, but the look of panic on the otter's muzzle dampened her spirits to the point where she became much more concerned for the mammal she surprisingly considered a friend.

"What am I-Are you serious, Judy? I'm a wanted criminal! Saving the city isn't going to erase hundreds of millions of dollars of stolen goods. All of the victims are going to want my head on a silver platter, and that's not going to happen if I have a say in it."

"Well, I don't mean to tell you what to do or anything, but maybe you should face the music eventually."

Even though Judy was almost expecting the reaction from him, the touched nerve did cause her to flinch a bit. She quickly forced herself to calm down, though, holding up her paws in a placating gesture as she attempted to explain her reasoning.

"As I've said, I'm not forcing you to do anything you don't want to. Seriously, though, do you want this weighing on your mind for the rest of your life? Sure, some mammals deserved it, but what about the ones who didn't? It's probably going to be difficult for them to get back on their feet, at least depending on how much they lost."

The fugitive officer fell silent, waiting to see how Eric would react to her reasoning.

At first, it seemed like her words were getting through to him, as she could see the mix of emotions in the otter's expression. However, that quickly changed as his face went blank.

Eric quickly turned away from the rest of the group to avoid having to look at them as he stared at the ground, fighting back tears.

"I'm sorry…I can't. Goodbye everyone."

"Eric, wait!"

Despite the rabbit's attempts to get him to stop, Eric walked towards the front door at a brisk pace, pushing his way through before disappearing around the corner.

This unexpected course of events left the three remaining heroes stunned as they watched Eric leave City Hall, Judy the most stunned of all considering she didn't know the otter as much as Nick and Finnick did.

Unfortunately, this moment of confusion caught the attention of Bellwether, who couldn't resist interjecting with a frankly boisterous laugh.

"Oh, your faces are so adorable right now. Did you really expect a filthy predator thief like him to stick around when the cops show up? Man, you are so naïve!"

This touched a nerve, and while Judy was luckily able to keep herself together and not fall for Bellwether's goading, Finnick was way more impulsive and prone to act.

Walking over towards the still prone sheep, Finnick glared at the sheep for a few moments before rearing his paw back and slapping her as hard as he could across the face.

"Don't you dare speak unless you're spoken to!" he said threateningly, pointing a clawed finger in her face.

Unfortunately, Finnick's threat fell on deaf ears, as Bellwether's expression was extremely smug as she showed how unimpressed she was.

Thankfully, though, she remained silent and Finnick took it as a sign to leave her be.

With everything as calm as it could be, this gave Judy the opportunity to check up on everyone and see how they were doing now that the riots have supposedly calmed down.

First up was Nick who, while he did look like he was still in a lot of pain, he was still conscious, which Judy took as a good sign. He'd also managed to at least wipe off a majority of the blood spatter from the dead Razorback, although he'd probably need a shower to get rid of the blood stains in his fur.

"Are you going to be alright, Nick?" she asked, kneeling down so that the two of them could see eye to eye.

"I'll live." said Nick with a grunt. "Frankly, though, who'd have thought that doing something as dumb as hitting a warthog in the face with a briefcase would lead to us saving the city?"

Somehow, Nick managed to pull a smile out of his pained expression, but it didn't take long before he started coughing, the fox barely able to move after the damage he most likely did to his ribs.

Thankfully, this caught Judy's attention, and she quickly placed a paw on Nick's shoulder and pushed him back down to the ground before he could make a move to sit up.

"Don't move, okay? Once Chief Bogo gets here, I'll try and convince him to get you to a doctor to get those ribs fixed up."

"Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, Carrots." said Nick sarcastically, having noticed her use of the word 'try'.

"Well, at least you're still acting like your normal self." said Judy airily, lightly pushing Nick's head on to the ground before heading towards the door.

* * *

Outside, it was strangely quiet. As Judy walked through the doorway into the streets of Savannah Central, a mix of emotions went through her mind as she looked at the scene in front of her.

Thankfully, from what she could see, there appeared to be no casualties. Honestly, she wouldn't have been able to live with herself if a mammal from either side of the battle was killed; especially knowing what they were doing this for.

Unfortunately, there were a large amount of injuries, once again on both sides. She was almost expecting the damage on the ZPD's side considering the comments Chief Bogo made on the phone, but seeing it in person still scared her even though none of them seemed to be greatly injured.

The predator's side was a little worse in terms of injuries compared to the ZPD considering how much the latter was armed, but outside of some cuts, bruises, and some mammals with broken or strained limbs, she couldn't see anything from her position that needed any immediate medical attention, which was a definite relief.

Still, she wouldn't have been comfortable with just leaving them as is, so after a few seconds of thought, she began walking around the square, checking up on how ever many mammals she could get to, just to make sure they were going to be alright.

She didn't end up getting too far, though, because as soon as she started checking up on the ZPD officers, a cruiser drove up to an empty space nearby and came to a stop, the occupant opening the door to reveal an unhappy Chief Bogo.

"Chief!"

She was slightly caught off guard by Bogo's sudden entrance, her full attention being on the injured mammals littering the streets. Luckily, though, she managed to pull herself together and salute him despite not even being officially a part of the ZPD.

"At ease, Hopps."

Still quite nervous, Judy relaxed her posture, but she still remained on guard, wondering just how Bogo was going to take out of everything that's happened.

"Hopps, I really should be arresting you for inciting a riot and breaking into City Hall, even if your intentions were noble."

Judy was mentally panicking after hearing that last sentence, considering whether to make a run for it or not as she stood in front of the cape buffalo.

"However…I believe that you have something to show me that has to do with Mayor Bellwether."

Once again caught off guard by him, it took Judy a few seconds for his request to register. Thankfully, though, before Bogo could get angry, Judy quickly pulled out the carrot pen before handing it over to the chief.

"What is this?" he asked, brandishing the pen in a manner that made it look like he thought this was some kind of joke.

"It's a recording pen, sir. Just hit the play button on the side, and you'll see what I meant."

Bogo stared at Judy for a few moments, puzzled as he wondered whether he should humor Judy and play the recording back. Eventually, though, he did so, somehow managing to hit the play button despite the pen being way too small for him.

As Bellwether's voice played back to him, Chief Bogo's eyes uncharacteristically widened, having not expected the sheep to simply confess her involvement with the weapons ring.

"Well…I suppose a confession is about the most clear cut reason for an arrest as you can get. Where is Mayor Bellwether?" he asked, desperately trying to retain his composure after this unexpected turn of events.

"She's right inside. We have something else that proves that she was involved with the Night Howler incident as well."

"Really? Well, lead the way, Hopps." said Bogo, his interest piqued.

"Hold on a second, sir. What about everyone else here? They need medical care."

"Already taken care of. Now please, lead the way."

Despite the vague tone of Bogo's explanation, Judy trusted the buffalo enough to leave the subject alone, leading the way as they made their way back into City Hall.

* * *

As Bogo and Judy made their way back into the opulent lobby of the City Hall building, Judy couldn't help but wonder, a thought popping up in the back of her mind of the possibility of Bellwether attempting an escape considering Eric was gone, and Nick was barely able to stand. Even Finnick, being the most able of the three, wasn't a hundred percent healthy considering the vicious gut punch he took.

Thankfully, though, her concerns were quickly abated, as the first thing she saw when returning to the group in the middle of the room was Bellwether still sitting in the same place she was when she left.

As Judy went to grab the briefcase to show to Bogo, the buffalo in question stood tall over the miniscule in comparison sheep, glaring darkly as he folded his arms in disgust.

"Well, do you have anything to say for yourself, Dawn? We all know you're going away for a very long time, so get it all off of your chest while you can."

Bellwether briefly considered telling Bogo how she really felt about him, but with how well she knew the police chief over the years, she knew just how difficult it was for her insults to be able to get to him. She could clearly remember at least a few times where former Mayor Lionheart was on one of his rants after an incident with Bogo's subordinates where even the boisterous ex-mayor's loud tone didn't even make the buffalo flinch.

So, realizing that doing what she was thinking about would be essentially pointless, she kept her mouth shut, only affixing Bogo with an uninterested glance before staring at the floor once more.

An audible snort came from the hulking police chief, but that was the only reaction that she got, as he decided it was best for him to move on.

Turning around, Bogo was about ready to find Judy so that he could see what this other piece of evidence was, but she was actually already there, the bunny standing quietly behind him while he was busy talking to Bellwether.

Handing over the case, Judy took a few steps back as Bogo fumbled with the latches, the case once again way too small for a mammal his size.

"What in the devil happened to this thing? It looks like it's been through a session with a bloody jackhammer!"

"Um…here's the thing. My friend Nick over there ended up using it as a blunt object."

She quickly pointed over to Nick's prone form, as the fox only acknowledged his name being called with a weak lifting of his paw.

"We never really got a chance to check inside to see if everything's still in one piece, so…feel free to take a look if you'd like?"

Judy knew that she'd worded that last sentence terribly, and she hoped that she didn't touch a nerve with the buffalo, but thankfully the only real response she got was a silent look before Bogo released the last latch and pulled the case open.

"Well…looks like it's your lucky day, Hopps. Most of them were smashed, but there's still one pellet left in here, as well as some kind of gun, which I'm assuming was what she used to shoot them. Am I correct?"

Judy nodded vigorously, slightly taken aback by the stroke of luck that came by.

"Well…" Bogo started, closing the case up before turning around to face Bellwether. "If there aren't any other pieces of damning evidence that you've pulled out of nowhere, I'd like to get our nice old mayor behind bars back at the precinct."

"Wait!"

Judy's sudden outburst forced Bogo to stop once more, turning back towards her as he tried his best to hold his temper.

"What is it now, Hopps?"

"What about us? We're all still technically fugitives from the law."

Bogo paused, having not thought about that fact.

"I'll see what I can do. I'll speak to the commissioner, and once we get a stable government back in Zootopia, we will speak to whoever the mayor is about a possible pardon for the three of you."

Judy couldn't hold her expression back from brightening at the possibility of being able to go back to her normal life, not to mention what these would do for Nick's and Finnick's lives.

"Thank you so much for the opportunity, sir. I really appreciate you looking out for all of us."

Chief Bogo simply nodded, satisfied with the answer he got from Judy, before turning around and walking towards Bellwether, who still didn't move from her original spot.

As Bogo read Bellwether her Miranda rights and began leading her away in cuffs, Judy walked over to Nick and Finnick, kneeling down as she watched Bellwether being led away for good, smiling a bit as she glanced to both of the foxes next to her.

"Looks like we've saved the city, huh?"

"I'd say so." said Nick, staring at the lights above him as he figured it was best not to move. "Getting a pardon would be pretty nice, though. Right, Fin?"

"I guess, but…would it really change things for the better?"

Finnick's strangely deep question caught both of the others off guard.

"What do you mean?" asked Judy.

"Well, you'd probably be able to go back to your old job, so that's not any different. As for us, though? Nicky here might be able to make something of himself with his record being wiped out. Me on the other paw…hustling's my life. I don't know if I'm going to be able to work my way up, especially considering there are mammals out there who still hate foxes."

"Fin, please, stop with the negative attitude. Besides, Nick and I are more than willing to help you get on your feet. All you have to do is ask."

Nick gave a slight nod to show that he was also willing to go along with Judy's offer.

As for Finnick, he was more than happy knowing that they cared about him but, in an attempt to keep his pride in check, he didn't show his true feelings in his expression, instead acknowledging the offer with a nod of his own.

The three of them fell silent soon after, enjoying the moment as it came to them. Unfortunately, it didn't take long before the calm serenity of the city around them was broken by the sound of ambulance sirens as what appeared to be a group of them came to a stop in front of the building.

"Yes, they're here!" said Judy, pumping her fist before jumping to her feet. "I'll be right back, Nick!"

"Take your time." said Nick lightly, calling after her despite Judy most likely being too busy rushing out of the building to hear him.

With the most talkative of the group being busy, the two foxes left in the lobby were forced to wait as she went about her business outside, eagerly awaiting what awaited for them next.

* * *

Four months have passed since news broke of Bellwether's arrest, and while reception to the news was mixed (especially along prey/predator lines), there were thankfully no real incidents between the two sides as of yet.

Unfortunately, considering it was only about three months until the election, finding someone who was willing to serve those remaining months proved to be way more difficult than Bogo or the commissioner imagined, so they were forced to release Lionheart from prison and reinstate him to the mayoral position, thankfully with the caveat that he would be unable to seek reelection due to the reception he got from the citizens.

Luckily, in an attempt to appease the crowds, Lionheart's first order of business was to severely cut down on the number of cameras in the city to where they were initially.

As for the heroes, things were quite a bit better now that things have calmed down.

After spending a few weeks lying low, Judy quickly went home to see her family, spending as much time as she could manage with them before having to return to the city.

She'd also managed to get her job back with the ZPD as well, although her rehiring was kept under wraps in an attempt to avoid media attention. This forced Bogo to keep her inside the precinct most of the time doing paperwork and helping in Records, which felt like torture to the rabbit. Still, she knew it was for the best, so she kept her mouth shut.

Nick and Finnick ended up going back to their normal lives running cons. Thankfully, Judy was able to get Nick the medical attention that he needed, so even though the recovery process was not fun, he was finally able to get on his feet. Surprisingly, though, he didn't seem to be as in to it as he used to, and he had an idea why.

Unfortunately, Finnick was the exact wrong mammal you would go to when it came to talking about your feelings, so he kept silent as well.

Once those four months have passed, though, and he stood up on the stage with Judy and Finnick as they accepted their pardons from Mayor Lionheart, he finally figured it out, leading Judy off into a private corner of the square as he shared his thoughts.

"Hey Carrots, I've been thinking."

"Really? What about?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Well…tell me what you think about this."

Wrapping an arm around Judy's shoulder, Nick went down on one knee, raising his free arm into the air as slowly swung it to the side.

"Nicholas P. Wilde, ZPD's first fox officer. How does that sound?"

Having not expected what he'd just said, Judy ended up sputtering for a moment, unable to form coherent sentences as she registered the momentous occasion.

"Nick, that's wonderful! Are you sure you really want to go through with this, though? I mean, don't get me wrong, but-"

"Carrots! Stop!" said Nick firmly, successfully stopping the motor mouthed bunny before she could really get going.

Judy quickly closed her mouth, her body language tense as she waited for his answer.

"Judy, I am not joking. I do want to go through with this."

The usage of her real name was all Judy needed to be convinced. She immediately hopped up into Nick's arms, nearly bowling the fox over as she gave him the biggest hug she could muster.

"Oh, I can't wait for us to work together. It's going to be so amazing!"

"I'd like that, too, but you do realize that there's no guarantee of that happening, right?"

"Oh yeah, I know. I'm not going to give up on it without a fight, though."

"And there's the Carrots I know. Come on, let's go celebrate."

Grabbing Judy by the shoulder, Nick led the way as the two of them headed off into the city, both of them eager to see what comes of this newfound freedom inside the city of Zootopia.

* * *

 **And that's the end of The New Age! I really hope that you guys have enjoyed reading this as much as I have done writing this over the past year and change. Experimenting with the Zistopia concept was a definite blast, and I'd love to do it again sometime in the future. Heck, I'm thinking about doing a possible sequel to this to show how the city recovers from Bellwether, but that's still up in the air.**

 **Anyway, now that this is finally finished, I think it's finally time for On The Run to get going, so I really hope you guys check that story out (although I think I might change the title considering how close it is to Johnsoneer's Fox on the Run).**

 **Oh, and also, I'm aware that mayors don't have the power to pardon outside of local infractions. Being that a governor was never really established in the context of the story, though, I figured I could make an exception.**

 **Thanks again, and I'll see you guys later!**

 **RK**


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